All kayak designs displayed on this page are courtesy of Nick Schade. Built from full size plans available from him directly. You can try to draw up scale plans yourself, but it is much less frustrating knowing you will invest your time in a tried and proven design. Rudders can be built from scratch, but I prefer to buy the entire assembly. They're available from Feathercraft. Sometimes I've purchased other rudder models that come available on ebay.
I will post some of my current and past cedar strip kayak projects here. If you would like some more information and details on how to build your own cedar strip kayak, I can highly recommend this book by Nick Schade called The Strip Built Sea Kayak. The only reference you need to get started, it covers all the woodworking aspects of the project, but more importantly working with fiberglass and epoxy supplies you will use. If you get stuck there is also the kayak building forum sponsored by Nick's company Guillemot Kayaks.
Guillemot Expedition Single, The length of the Expedition Single provides volume for gear and efficient long distance paddling. Although this kayak may appear long for a single, it is not unwieldy in handling. This was the first strip boat I built and is paddled regularly by it's current owner on the Hudson River in New York State.
In the foreground is the most recent boat, the Great Auk and another Expedition Single.
Some details I like to incorporate into my boats: Native West Coast Art inlays into the hulls and decks of the kayaks. Seats are custom 'cheek' fitted by hand, made of closed cell foam, they also make great camp cushions at the end of the day! Additional layers of fiberglass to handle the rocks in critical areas of the hull. The best details of these are found in Nick's book.
