Greenland “Skin On Frame” Kayak Build 2

The Greenland Kayak building group “Skirts and Skins” held their second meeting and equipment was moved into the leased warehouse located in Livonia Michigan.

The build areas are set up in rows going down the center of the building space.

This space is shared with some storage material from a previous lease and a 38 foot Power Quest Cigarette boat – just a little different boat than the boats we are building, if you add about $380K +  to the build budget.  The beauty of our boats is they have unlimited MPG of gasoline fuel rating, costing much less to operate and no carbon foot print.  Of course these benefits are sacrificed for the speed capabilities of the other boat, and not likely to be able to attract the attention of members of the opposite sex at Metro Beach next summer with the Greenland Kayak.   All boats it appears have their own purpose and limitations.

There are two people working on finishing their Greenland Skin On Frame kayaks from last year’s build.

Two kayaks for sanding and putting on a finish, one kayak kit, and one canoe being built.

There is one Baidarka style sea kayak also being built.  So a variety of activities will be going on during the Greenland build process.

For the majority of the group this is their first hand built kayak-  Greenland or any other style.

The purpose of this Kayak building session was to move in the equipment and take anthropometric measurements of each person building a Greenland boat to custom size the boat for each person.

These measurements determined the center of gravity, the length and width of the boat to be built, many of these measurements were then transferred to a “story pole.”   This pole is a wood pole or stick that is a reference ruler to layout the ribs and other parts of the kayak.   Our main reference guide is the book by Christopher Cunningham “Building The Greenland Kayak” if you want to read more about the process in detail.

Wood arrives prior to the next session when the work really begins.  After each session there is a debriefing option over lunch or beverages.

We met at the Box Bar in Plymouth Michigan for this one, there was a heavy snow fall coming down making the distance to the bar appear far.

On the way home I saw something I have never seen before in Michigan.  I was on the M-14 freeway traveling West just before Ann Arbor and three cars decided they could stop in an active lane on the freeway and clear their windows of snow as if they were in a parking lot.  How they did not get hit I will never know.  Has anyone else witnessed a crazy and stupid thing like that winter driving on the freeways?