Meet Dennis Judson, owner of Adventure Sports, aquanaut extraordinaire, and lover of all things racy and red. He also possesses the power of persuasion, so much so that he and his cohort Rick Starr talked me into building them a couple of wave riding kayaks from scratch.
But wait before we go further, I know, I hear the murmurs. Yes, there were a few cries of blasphemy from my homo erectis wave riding brethren. And even calls of "why are you doing that?" Well simply put, because I can, and I love taking on projects of design and construction of watercraft for riding waves.
So let's see what it took to to get this project off the ground. First off I lofted out some curves for the profile and outline. Then I used the curves to hotwire out this blank. From there I shaped out what the boats would look like.
After the shapes were done I prepped the foam with mold release and vacuum bagged the skins on. The bottoms were sheet foam and the decks were this cool honeycomb matting.
Master Glasser Tony Mikus did the outer lamination which was then polished out.
With cockpits cut open it was now time to let the genie out of the bottle (ie, pull the foam out). After that, the combing went on and we were approaching launch day.
A crystal clear day greeted the christening. And I have to admit that the boats looked awesome. But the burning question for me was "how would they work?"
Mother nature provided a perfect test track. And with waves like this, all I have to say is whatever "floats your boat", get out there and have fun!
As for how the boats went, it was all thumbs up. But our story doesn't end there. Next post I'll explain where all this is going.
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