Wood and Canvas Kayak Building

The design of the kayak comes from the Eskimos of Southwestern Greenland, with dimension-sawn wood substituted for a frame of carved driftwood and bones, and canvas substituted for animal skins. The building techniques are simple but elegant, incorporating modern adhesives to reduce the number of screw fastenings and the degree of precision required, while still creating a strong, light boat. Ordinary shop tools and locally available woods will suffice. The two kayaks shown under construction in this book's many photos and drawings--a 17-footer and an 18-footer--were built from the same lines and offsets (included in the book). Putz shows how to scale the boat up or down to any size using a pocket calculator. He also shows how to cover the boat with fiberglass rather than canvas if desired.

Open-water kayaking is addictive. Most people who try it decide they simply must have their own kayak--until they check the price of factory-built models. And then they notice that most of them look, well, plastic. Now there's a remedy to this twin dilemma of overpriced, unaesthetic kayaks: Wood and Canvas Kayak Building offers all the information and plans you need to build two open-water kayaks--simply, easily, and economically.

Author, Curmudgeon, and sometime Walrus George Putz guides even the most inexperienced woodworker through the whole process of building a 17- or 18 1/2-foot sea kayak evolved from an Inuit design, with plans developed especially for this book by naval architect and canoe and kayak builder Spencer Lincoln.

What you end up with is a light, strong, elegant boat built from no more than $250 worth of readily available materials that will absolutely shame those neon-hued store-bought versions that cost more than a monthly mortgage payment.

"If you've been waiting for a book to guide you in building a kayak, here it is."--The Ensign

"Readers can almost smell the varnish and wood shavings."--Booklist

"Putz takes an unusually holistic approach to the process of building that is both entertaining and wide ranging."--Sea Kayaker