Build Your Own Kayak or Kaholo Stand Up Paddleboard
Chesapeake Light Craft Build: Build Your Own Kayak or Kaholo Stand Up Paddleboard
May 13–19 last day to register is April 14
10 AM – 5 PM | Kit cost + $889 tuition
In this seven-day build class, instructor Joel Arrington will guide you through all the steps of building a Kaholo stand-up paddleboard (SUP) or kayak from a Chesapeake Light Craft kit. Kayak options include: Shearwater 14, 16, 17, Sport or Sectional Sport kayak, or the Wood Duck 10, 12, 14, and Wood Duck Double.
About Kaholo SUPs:
There are no other SUP boards in the world that are easier for a first-time boatbuilder, or better-looking. But you don’t give up one bit of performance if you build your own Kaholo! The Kaholos are okoume marine plywood, stitched-and-glued together, and sheathed in fiberglass and epoxy, with a grid of bulkheads and stiffeners inside to make the boards stiff and light. Kits include premium non-skid deck pads, cut to shape, breather tubes, and custom laminated skegs.
It’s taken five years and more prototypes than CLC cares to count to refine the two Kaholo SUP boards. Working with surfing and paddleboard guru Larry Froley of Gray Whale Trading in California, they created two beautiful hollow wooden boards with the rare quality of being fast enough to race but stable enough for first-timers. Tracking is great and a fine bow with kayak-derived shaping lifts the Kaholo 12-6 and 14 up and over waves. The tail shape and twin fins facilitate surfing on long swells once your skills build up to that.
About Shearwater Kayaks:
“The Shearwater is an eye-catching, light and fast cruiser that does many things well. It is a strong contender for the budget-minded paddler looking to answer the ‘if I could only have one kayak’ question.” -from Sea Kayaker’s October 2006 review of the Shearwater 17.
Stitch-and-glue sea kayak design has grown up a lot in the last fifteen years, driven by enthusiastic paddlers who prefer ultralight, beautiful boats that handle like extensions of themselves. The Shearwater design abounds in interesting and innovative features. To emphasize the clean lines, the decks are computer cut from sapele plywood, a beautiful mahogany with a reddish-brown swirling grain, to contrast with the honey-colored okoume sides and bottoms. Flush hatches are standard. Veteran stitch-and-glue builders will find notable tweaks in the Shearwater kits, including CNC-cut “finger joints” instead of the more typical scarf joints. The finger joints eliminate the alignment step required of scarf joints, so parts are quicker to assemble and impossible to misalign. Another luxury in the Shearwater kits is that 99% of the holes for the wire stitches have been drilled for you by their CNC machine. This means faster assembly and no measuring for bulkhead locations, as those holes are drilled, too.
About Wood Duck Kayaks:
The Wood Ducks are among their easiest-to-build kits. Panels are precision-cut on their computerized equipment, with puzzle-joints and pre-drilled stitching holes for fast and accurate assembly. Sheathed in fiberglass inside and out, the Wood Duck will withstand real-world abuse on gravel or shell beaches and will bounce over submerged stumps without harm. Capacity is ample and meant to accommodate a broad range of paddlers. Cockpits are 38 inches long, for easy in and out, and your legs and knees will not be confined. The Wood Duck 10 will carry paddlers up to 200 pounds, and the Wood Duck 12 will easily handle a 275-pounder, plus gear.