The first (at least) 60 hours of this project went into building a set of forms that I would wrap the wood strips around to form the shape of the boat. The Redfish Silver that I am building is a 16' - 7" boat that should fit Sarahs 5'-7" very well. Sea kayaks are long boats because of two reasons. They track better over large areas of water; which means you dont need to work to hard to keep them straight. Also, the longer the boat the faster you can go. This boat also has a slight fore rocker designed in which allows for better turning with just your body. This is a pretty narrow boat with only a 22" beam (width where you sit) which make for a slightly more tippy boat, however this is an advantage when it comes to surf, big water, or rolls.
I built station platforms out of salvaged plywood and MDF from the dumpster. This wood was very warped but I managed to get a relatively straight strongback (long straight piece of wood that the forms are attached too) from it. I built racks for my future strips of wood onto the stations.
Then I cut out the forms (which I received from the plans) and spent about a week aligning, sanding, measuring, and aligning again. The old adage is measure twice cut once. Mine was more like measure 30 times, cut once.
To help get the boat as straight as possible I ran string lines over the center line and sheer lines.
station risers with forms attached
viewing down the string lines to see the alignment
you can start to see the shape of the boat!
station risers with forms attached
viewing down the string lines to see the alignment
you can start to see the shape of the boat!
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