Traditional Kayak Building
*8-Day Class – Once-in-a-lifetime experience!
*Learn complex boat-building and wood working techniques.
*Traditional construction – modern, ultrliaght performance
*Expert Instructor Kiliii Yu of Seawolf Kayaks
*You WILL go home with a fully functional self-made kayak!
This is one of those classes that we can truly call “Once in a lifetime” – we’ve brought in the experts, Seawolf Kayak Center, from the Pacific Northwest to teach the ancient art of building traditional wood frame kayaks. Building a skin-on-frame kayak means more than you first imagine. When you bring a boat to life in the traditional fashion, you create stories just as the first kayakers did and still do. You learn complex building techniques, but also how to understand wood, lashings and hand tools. In class we talk about kayak history, native history and paddling adventures.
*8-Day Class: $1600 (no discounts or promotions of any kind allowed on this class)
Advanced woodworking: Over eight days we cut and bend wood using nearly mostly hand tools. We use steam to bend amazing curves into wood, even the elliptical kayak coamings (cockpit rings). We learn to sight and see the hull shape as it forms. We lash the pieces together without any metal, then sew the skins on in the traditional Greenlandic style.
Traditional paddles: In our workshops, every builder carves out their own Greenland-type paddle. Other types are also available upon request, including a design from Norton Sound, AK, and Aleut paddle types..
About Seawolf’s design and building methods: There’s a lot to be said for understanding the design of small boats. Designing a kayak is much more complex than just the initial sketch phase, though– much like drawing up the blueprints to an airplane, you can’t be certain that it’ll perform the way you might imagine on paper. Why? Because in the real world, water is complex, and paddlers adapt to the water in complex ways. The only way to take a decent boat design out of the realm of average into exceptional is to build and test, and build and test. Skin-on-frame kayak designers have an enormous advantage, because our boats are fast and easy to prototype, allowing us to make a dozen iterations in a year. In fact, finding the time and conditions to test properly each prototype is usually the limiting factor! Seawolf has successfully helped build hundreds of kayaks.
Dates Offered:
Dates will be scheduled for 2019/2020 as interest is shown. Please contact us to inquire about course dates.
Maximum Class Size: 8 People
Directions? Details?
The clinic is located in Santa Cruz, CA on Adventure Out’s private property – approximately 10 minutes from downtown. Exact directions will be provided upon registration.
Your workshop fee includes:
Professional and experienced instructors from Seawolf Kayak Center and Adventure Out. Snacks every day during the workshop (full meals are student’s responsibility). All kayak building materials. All large and group tools (you will be required to bring a small amount of hand tools).
Your packing list:
Appropriate clothing to be outdoors all day, hand tools, food & beverage.