We help people build their own boats.
You've wandered into this site because you have an interest in building your own boat. If you've already built a boat, you'll know the joy of assembling bits of wood into that most functional and beautiful of all shapes---a kayak, a canoe, a pulling boat, a sailboat. Within these pages you'll find elegant shapes worthy of your craftsmanship.
If this is your first time around, you'll find on this site a trove of boat designs conceived just for you, and more importantly, an organization devoted to helping builders of all skill levels. If you've never built a boat before in your life, Chesapeake Light Craft places at your disposal all of the resources to make it the experience of a lifetime: complete boat kits, comprehensive instructional materials, videos, a website with hundreds of pages of helpful tips, and unlimited tech support.
If you're going to invest your time in a boatbuilding project, it had better be a great-looking boat. As you surf through the site, study the photos very carefully; linger over the hull shapes and details. We don't think you'll find better designed, more shapely, or better-looking kit boats anywhere. Because wood-epoxy boats like ours have life spans measured in generations, we think the boat you build ought to be a work of sculpture.
Although a lot of our kayaks and smallcraft end up on display---in living rooms, boat shows, and museums---we really mean them to be used. Every single model on our website is the end product of years of refinement. The most discerning paddlers, rowers, and sailors in the world choose Chesapeake Light Craft designs because they're looking for handling qualities they can't find in mass-produced boats.
At Chesapeake Light Craft we've built a storehouse of knowledge particular to the amateur boatbuilder. How do you get epoxy to cure in a cold garage? How do you make varnish look like it was sprayed on if you don't own a fancy sprayer? How do you join lengths of 8-foot plywood to make a boat 16 feet long? An email, a phone call, or a browse through this website will turn up answers to any boatbuilding question you can think of.
Surf on for a tour of the best boats you can build. How can we help YOU build a boat?
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Although wooden boat building is too labour intensive for wooden boats to compete commercially with their plastic counterparts, wood is still one of the best structural materials for small boats. Wood and epoxy are used to build some of the world's best multi-hull sailing boats, sprint kayaks and rowing shells.
Wood is up to 10 times stiffer than fibreglass by weight and nearly 6 times stiffer than kevlar/epoxy composite. Thus your energy is expended moving the boat not flexing the hull. Wood also retains its strength despite repeated cycles of tension and compression from rough seas and fast paddling: it does not get brittle with age as fibreglass and plastic can.
Marineply boats are lighter than a glass or plastic version so they accelerate quicker, carry more equipment and supplies, and are easier to spin on wave tops and in surfing conditions. Ashore lighter boats are also better: they are easier to carry above the high water mark or lift onto a car roof rack.
With fibreglass sheathed hulls to resist puncturing and abrasion these boats are tough. All the wood is saturated in epoxy so that most of the maintenance normally associated with traditional wooden boats is eliminated.
Hard-chine, Multi-chine, or Round-bottom?
Hard Chine
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HARD-CHINE boats are renowned for great handling. A good hard-chine hull tracks well yet is very maneuverable. The underwater profile of a hard-chine kayak changes dramatically as the boat is leaned. So it's easy to "carve" turns or make subtle course corrections by leaning the boat. This superior handling allows hard-chine boats to cover miles faster than other hull shapes in certain conditions; less bracing and fewer corrective strokes are required. Hard-chine boats are, by far, the easiest type to build; most of our customers with no previous woodworking experience choose our hard-chine craft. Hard-chine kayaks often hold more gear and feel roomier than multi-chine or round-bottom kayaks.
Multi Chine
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Some paddlers like the feel of MULTI-CHINE kayaks. They are willing to trade some nice handling characteristics for slightly better efficiency. A loaded multi-chine hull has about 3% less wetted surface area than a hard-chine hull with the same dimensions; this decreases resistance by about 1 to 2%. While multi-chine kayaks don't surf as well as hard-chined hulls, they can be easier to control when surfing onto a beach sideways. Initial stability is often a bit lower than hard-chine hulls, and turns require more lean. Multi-chine boats are more difficult and time consuming to build after all, they have so many more parts. Since they have many seams, considerable fibreglass work is required, but building one is still within the capabilities of most folks.
Round Bottom
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ROUND-BOTTOM, or compounded plywood boats offer incredible efficiency. Their low wetted surface area hulls move with minimal effort at low to medium speeds. They are also fast and fun to paddle, but have less initial stability and lower volume than either hard-chine or multi-chine boats. These boats are best for paddlers who don't wish to camp or to paddle in rough conditions. They are very fast to build once you "get the hang of it," but the process is exacting and a little tricky, so we recommend them as a second, rather than a first, project. |
