Submitted by kathryn.jones on

KAYAK BUILDING 

Total Fee - £2100 

Deposit: £525

Join Archipelago Folkschool for a week on Mull and build your very own beautiful sea kayak to take home with you. We build the CNC Shrike over this week - a Greenland style sea kayak, made of thin marine plywood and fibreglass to make a very strong but very light boat. To read more about it, check out our Our Boats page. Because of the nature of these builds, you will do a lot of work on your own boat before we work together as a group on all the boats to achieve various tasks in the available time frame.

2024 Dates:

4-11 May
6-13 June
10-17 August 

THE COURSE

This is our busiest week of all the boatbuilding weeks we run: to get the boats finished by the end of the course, we have a lot to do. Our staff are on hand to help and support you but we try and make sure you do all the building for yourself - it’s your boat and we want it to feel that way. We will have a few longer days to get everything done, but it’s usually pretty fun working. We start the week with safety briefings and group introductions before swiftly getting stuck into boatbuilding.

  • Day 0 (arrival day) - On the Saturday we look to do an introduction, safety briefing and get into tacking the hull together. To give everyone time to arrive we start in the workshop at 1300.
  • Day 1 Sunday - Tidy scarfs and assemble hull. Seal inside boats. Tape 1st seam. Fit rails.
  • Day 2 Monday - Tape and Glue hull.
  • Day 3 Tuesday - Fair rails, fit masik and frame decks. Fibreglass inside cockpits. Fit forward deck
  • Day 4 Wednesday - Prep for glass outside. Fit aft Deck
  • Day 5 Thursday - Clean up deck and cut cockpit. Fit cockpit surround. Epoxy seal deck.
  • Day 6 Friday - Tidy up deck, fit hatches. Flip boat and fibreglass outside.
  • Day 7 Saturday - Tidy deck edge, pack up and depart

It’s a lot to do but we can get it all done! When you take the boat home it’ll be structurally complete but will need more work - you’ll have to sand and paint or varnish the hull. You’ll also have to fit the boat to yourself afterwards - people add seats, thigh braces, foot pegs and deck lines too. You’ll have learned how to do all of these things and you can always reach out to us if you have any questions.

Previous groups have found that it works out at about 50 hours work after the course. We’ll spend some time on the last days discussing finishing techniques and making sure you have everything you need. We’ll also be available to help with any issues you encounter after the course.

EXTRAS

The boat comes as standard with plastic screw-on hatches - they are reasonably cheap but we think they are great for the boats. We have in the past offered an upgrade from these to Kajaksport hatches but we tend to find there is little advantage to the extra complexity and cost.

As standard we do not put a skeg on the boats - we think they handle fine without, but a skeg definitely improves performance. If you’d like a skeg we can fit a Kajaksport skeg box and control cable during the course. Because of time limitations you will have to do some completion work on these when you get home - you’ll have to fit the control box and then set up the system. It’s not hard and you’ll have learned the skills over the week, but it’ll add a bit of time to your finishing. If you want either of these extras there is a option at booking.

This week does include camping on our croft, but if you prefer fancier accommodation on Mull we strongly recommend you book a place to stay as soon as possible. We’ve got a guide here. If you are having trouble do get in touch and we’ll see if we can help.

This course is suitable for any adults over 18 yrs of age, though we may be able to work with younger people, provided they are coming with someone older than 18. The booking is for a single person building a boat by themselves. If you’d like to bring a second person to work on a single boat (e.g. a parent of an older child or a helper if you worry about the amount of work) we can usually accommodate that but please get in touch before booking so we can talk it through.

This non-refundable deposit secures your space and we’ll send an invoice for the balance owed due 8 weeks before your course starts (including extra for the larger boat if selected). Please be sure you have read our Terms and Conditions before booking.

Read more & book

Read more about Archipelago Folkschool, one of our Shipshape Network Scotland projects.

Four people standing by their newly built wooden kayaks, in a rugged Scottish island landscape Zone Scotland