The Advantage of Proper Flotation

I took two skin-on-frame kayaks to the beach today, one with skin and one without skin. The one with skin had no extra flotation. The skinless kayak had flotation bags fore and aft.

Here, the Madeline 16 floats on a nice, even keel when she's empty.

But, fill her up with water and things change. The only thing preventing Cleopatra's Needle here was the bottom of the Lake holding the stern in place.

Now, here is the skinless Abatross 14, no skin, but full flotation.

And, even with a 245 pound paddler on board, she floats level in calm water.

The skinless kayak needed some bracing occasionally, but I was able to paddle it away and back to the beach.

I would liked to have tried the skinless kayak with a sea sock and a spray skirt as well, but, as you can see, I didn't have the coaming installed on the Albatross. I think the spray skirt would have held a lot of air in place inside the sea sock, though, which would have provided additional flotation.

Lesson learned: If you're not going to use a sea sock, you need to have flotation bags if you are going to paddle on open water with your skin-on-frame kayak. Ideally, you should have both flotation and a sea sock.

The first time I ever capsized my kayak I had no spray skirt and no float bags. I did a sculling stroke, the paddle dove, and pulled the kayak over with it, flooding the entire thing. That was before I knew even how to do a self-rescue, much less dewater the kayak. I swam it to shore and hauled the heavy kayak out of the water so I could empty it.

You need to have flotation, and, ideally, it should be backed up with a sea sock.

You can find video of the test here:

How To Float Your Camera

Your Camera, your GPS, even sunglasses, have something in common - most of them sink when you drop them in the water. When I was in college I got a very nice Walkman after I saw a kid drop it in about twenty feet of water. I went home and picked up my snorkeling gear and dove after it. The kid was long gone, but I saved the Walkman.



So, the waterproof camera may be able to survive a dunking if you drop it in the water, but unless you can dive after it, waterproof won't matter. It's an easy problem to solve, though. A neoprene glasses strap, available for about two bucks from Wal-Mart, will easily float your ultralight eyeglasses or plastic sunglasses.



And, a piece of closed cell foam will provide plenty of flotation for your camera or GPS.





The closed cell foam is attached to the tripod mount of the camera, where it's out of the way. I should add a washer to the thumb screw to make sure it doesn't pull through the foam.

You may also be able to use a large sized floating foam key chain.

Disclaimer: You should test the flotation in a controlled environment before you drop your gear in open water.

Black Dog Flotation Bags!

Black Dog Kayaks Flotation Bags add safety and storage space to your Black Dog Kayak. Flotation bags displace water, meaning that if you swamp your kayak, you'll have gallons less to pump out. We can't stress enough how important it is to have proper flotation in a kayak, which is why we're happy to be offering these flotation bags made exclusively for our kayaks by Spirit Line. The flotation bags are sold in pairs, front and rear and can be ordered from our Safety page.



Made for Black Dog Kayaks by Spirit Line, the rear flotation bag is constructed with a unique 3 ply material. The design allows you to store your gear in one compartment and inflate the other compartment for flotation. Each compartment is the full size of the bag. Hidden solid plastic inserts gives an incredible seal for a submersible seal in the gear chamber. The bow flotation bag is smaller in size and is made with the same 3 ply material as the rear flotation/storage bag. Flotation Bags are $89.99/pair, or, $55 for the Gear Bag, $45 for the front flotation bag (air only). Watch for pics of the flotation bags installed in our kayaks soon.

CNC Precision Cut Parts

We're happy to be able to announce that the plywood frame components for the Greenland Style Kayak are being produced with a CNC machine (computer numerical control). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNC Beside alleviating some of the work load in our shop, the most desirable benefit to process is that a CNC machine quite simply can produce parts more perfectly than can be made by hand.

The bottom line is that the kits are produced more quickly, so that we can get them into your hands faster!

Ice Paddling on Lake Superior

To see more photos visit our Forum

We went out paddling in the ice again last week, April 21st.

Temps were in the 60's, the sun was shining, and the ice was falling.

We went south of Marquette, launched off of South Beach and paddled to the beach near the Michigan Welcome Center. Swells were one to two feet high and were reflecting off of the ice. My babysitter, Don, paddled right up along the ice foot for a while. I stayed off between twenty and one hundred yards, depending on what the waves were doing. The waves were reflecting off of the ice and coming back at the same height they went in. There was a lot of floating ice too. Sometimes it felt like we were padlding through a Margarita or a Slurpee.

I did grab a nice big piece of floating ice, very clear, to take home and use for recreational purposes. The clear ice is good if you get thirsty. The pieces have spines and other shapes sticking up, and you can just break a piece off of the top and chew on it.

The Carbon/Kevlar paddle worked very well. The hard finish was especially nice when fending off the big ice bergs floating around us.

Greenland Kayak Workshop

Build your own kayak!

Join Great Lakes Kayak and The Northwest Passage as we welcome a unique boat building opportunity presented by Black Dog Kayaks.

Designed along the lines of the traditional Greenland style kayak, with a low rear deck, hard chines, and a shallow-V hull, our low volume kayak is just the ticket for the boat builder who wants an easy-to-build, traditional looking kayak. This boat building oportunity will see you assemble the frame, sand and finish/waterproof the frame and conclude skinning under the watchful eye of a professional boat builder and designer. The result a Greenland style kayak that is a true performer - fast, lightweight, and easy to roll.

Your Greenland Style Kayak kit includes a builders guide, pre-cut and notched marine plywood frames, cedar stringers, cockpit touring ring, skinning fabric, web trim, a countersink bit and waterproof glue.

- 2008 Price: Full package: $1,100, base package: $929
- Location: Great Lakes Kayak, Lake Bluff, IL

Details
CLASS DATES (2008) - March 28-30
CLASS TIMES - All day Friday - Sunday
STATUS - OPEN Limited space

Activities: 3 day instructional session in skin-on-frame boat building.
All participants will depart with their own Greenland style kayak.
Dates: March 28-30, 2008 (All day Friday through Sunday)
2008 Price: $1,100 Full Package includes catered lunch, t-shirt, video DVD of weekend.
Base Package: $929 (boat only)
Location: Great Lakes Kayak, Lake Bluff, IL
Included in base package: One individual Greenland kayak kit, instructor, work space, equipment storage and for course duration, coffee, tea, hot water.
Full package includes: All the above and catered lunch(3 days), sponsor T-shirt, video DVD of weekend.
Not included: Transportation, drill/screwgun, a phillips screwdriver, clamps, and tape measure. Outing cancellaton insurance (please review your cancellation policy for full details) and instructor gratuity.
Suggested tools: sanding block or belt sander

Of Helmets and Reflective Tape

Everyone knows that you should add reflective tape to your gear and to your equipment to make it easier for other boaters to see you and for the Coasties to rescue you.

One of my Christmas presents that I received was a Pro-Tec helmet. Of course, I wanted to add reflective tape, but I didn't want to end up looking like a safety dork or like a Coast Guard Wannabe. So, I picked up some black reflective engineer's tape. In normal light, the tape looks like black electrical tpe. But, when you shine a light on it, it reflects back a bright white.

Definitely a safety dork. Note that this pic was taken with a flash, with no tape on the helmet.


Safety Dork in profile.


Black Engineer's tape applied, photo taken without a flash:


Same helmet, same black tape, only this time taken with a flash:




Note that you can get Engineer's tape in a number of different colors, so you add reflective safety tape to your helmet without fear of looking like a safety dork.