chesapeake light craft

Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival LIVE! – Test-driving some Chesapeake Light Craft boats

Posted on October 4th, 2008

I just test-drove three Chesapeake Light Craft boats: a Wood Duck 12 Hybrid kayak, a Chester Yawl pulling boat, and an Annapolis Wherry. You may recall I have written about them before. I really like what they are doing.

The Wood Duck is a pretty little kayak (the hybrid refers to it being part [...]

Structurally complete! The Peace Canoe gets a bottom

Posted on September 8th, 2007

And then, after a final push, in the gathering twilight, the Peace Canoe had a bottom. And that, gentle readers, means she is structurally complete. Houston, we have a boat!

Just a whole lotta planning and sanding, plus a mother lode of plastic wood, and we will be cracking open a paint can [...]

Back in business – the Peace Canoe

Posted on August 31st, 2007

At long last, I believe I have the sheer clamps replaced in a working manner. Man, oh man, was that an mistake that added time to the project! Just getting the broken ones off took several nights of careful digging for the nails with a tack-puller and cutting the goop with a utility knife. [...]

Building the Peace Canoe – time on the Moaning Chair

Posted on August 5th, 2007

At the beginning of Howard Chapelle’s seminal tome Boatbuilding, there is a 4-page introduction in which Chapelle goes through the entire building process at a 10,000′ level. After talking through getting out molds, cutting the rabbet, and installing deck beams, Chapelle devotes the final paragraph to a subject that one must assume is of equal [...]

The Peace Canoe gets seats and gets closer to full sides

Posted on July 12th, 2007

Voila, the seats are ready. I have been working on them at night or during glue cures, and they have come along well. Here is the middle one. The plans specify cut-outs on the ends of the seats; I added my own flavor of these cut-outs.

I have also installed both chine logs, and [...]

The Peace Canoe progresses – have plywood, will start cuttin’

Posted on June 28th, 2007

So I got the plywood, some good quality, from what I can tell, marine fir. That in hand, it was time to start getting big pieces together, starting with the sides.

The plans call for five 4×8 sheets of 1/4″ plywood, 2 1/3 of which go into the sides. The Getting Started in Boats write-up [...]

More on the Peace Canoe – scarfing sheer clamps and chine logs

Posted on June 23rd, 2007

While I wait on the plywood I have been preparing the sheer clamps and chine logs, which I took out of 10′ and 12′ 1x. I thus have had to – and the write-up in Getting Started in Boats assumes this – scarf pieces together for these fore-and-aft members. I am not a very [...]

Beginning work on the Peace Canoe

Posted on June 17th, 2007

I have begun gathering the lumber and hardware for the Peace Canoe project. It is, by the way, AMAZINGLY difficult to find appropriate plywood. Even specialty places around here – and while we are not a maritime center here in DC, we aren’t land-locked, either – seemed to have a hard time once “marine [...]

Walking the walk – a wooden boat (Peace Canoe) for Chine bLog!

Posted on June 9th, 2007

So here is the situation: as I have mentioned I have a family with small children. I get to go out in my kayak sometimes, but if we had our own boat, I would get out much more because it can be a family activity. Rentals are possible, but leave things to chance [...]

Hmmm – Guillemot Kayak / Chesapeake Light Craft partnership

Posted on July 11th, 2006

I see in Nick Shade’s blog that he has been talking to Chesapeake Light Craft about partnering on a sit-on-top boat. Interesting alliance. Nick seems to be playing with downmarket options (not meant to be pejorative – I speak in terms of access for builders) and CLC probably needs some fresh ideas. I [...]

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