Some of my best stories come from times I attempted to do something I was wholly unqualified to do.
This is a common theme among projects my friend Ben and I take on. Here is an example of how a conversation between Ben and I often goes.
Josiah - "Hey let's do something that would be cool but that we are totally unqualified to do and probably shouldn't even consider"
Ben - "Yeah why not, I'm not doing anything on Sunday"
This is how Ben and I set out to handmake a pair of Kayaks.
Starting off
To begin with, we were excited.
We spent a day doing research, googling and youtubing, and checking out books from the library (that I would later forget to return... shhhh)
We used Artificial Sinew (fake animal strands) to lash the frame together, and wood pegs instead of screws.
The idea was that by using natural materials as opposed to screws, the boat would flex with waves or debris crashing into it. Nails or screws have a higher chance of splitting the wood under stress.
As I said... we did research. And while a bit slow, we felt we were making decent progress.
But soon the problems began.
For starters, no one on the internet, or in the published Greenland kayak building community, can ANYONE AGREE ON HOW TO BUILD A KAYAK.
Do you know what's harder than following confusing Ikea instructions, following five sets of confusing Ikea instructions, and not knowing which one is the right one?
When we started this, our research had told us this should take around 60 hours (we figured closer to 80 to compensate for our lack of experience and that we were making 2 kayaks) About 2 months should do it.
1 Year Later
We spent 2 days almost every week working on this. Cutting, sanding, going to Menards, building a form, planning, lashing, going back to Menards, trying to rebuild the fire because it went out and we are freezing in this not heated barn that we are working in which should not have been a problem but its been 6 months and we are still at this somehow.
You get the picture.
But after finishing the frame, and wrapping it in some very large blankets of ballistic nylon, we sewed the "skin" up and sealed it.
Fun fact: the stuff we used to seal these kayaks and make them waterproof is actually made to seal concrete in parking garages.
So it does not come off...
After spending a night sitting in the front yard washing it off our hands with gasoline...
We headed for the sea! (a small nearby lake, we live in the center of Michigan)
On the great first voyage-
We hit an iceberg.
An iceberg called our poor design.
In a nutshell, we made the kayaks too skinny, causing them to be extremely tippy.
Basically, you needed superman levels of balance in order to stay upright in these.
Which is unfortunate
Because we had to start over.
Curse the incredibly confusing and sometimes entirely wrong instructions we were following.
2nd Times a Charm
Back in the barn, we painfully cut the skin off the frames and disassembled the kayak frame.
Yeah... it was a sad day.
But this time we were able to rebuild the kayaks a lot quicker. Mostly because we now knew what we were doing (sort of).
But the disappointment in our initial failure hung heavy.
And our lives got busier so our ability to devote time to the project became less and less.
Currently, these boats still sit in the barn, half sown up. About 2 days' worth of work from being finished.
We will finish them one day. And once again head for the water.
And this time it will work... because we tested it with a temporary skin made of shrink wrap before finalizing the design.
Until that day, this has been one of the most fun and frustrating projects ben and I have ever worked on.
And I didn't even touch on some of the other exciting and frustrating things that happened during this process.
Like accidentally melting a metal pot, or spending 2 weeks snapping boards in half because we were confidently cutting them the wrong way.
Until then, here is to Jank and Jonk (what we lovingly named our boats).
