Building an Outer Island

Outfitting

There are several items which will be added to the kayak which can be described as outfitting. This includes building a cockpit, constructing a seat, cutting holes in the deck for hatches, adding bulkheads and foot braces, and installing deck lines. Most people will not change much to a particular proven design (i.e. changing the shape of the hull) or vary much on construction techniques, but there are many ways to outfit the kayak which really personalizes the final product. I've borrowed ideas from several others, picking and choosing the ones which I think will work best for me.

The cockpit has been cut out of the deck

The plans for the Outer Island called for an "ocean cockpit", which is smaller and rounder than the picuture above. I chose to build a keyhole cockpit. Actually, I used a template from the plans I had for the wood kayak I previously built. This way I'll be able to use the same sprayskirt on both boats. As you can see the shape of the cockpit fits nicely into the pattern I created for the deck. After cutting out the cockpit I taped the hull and deck together using some duct tape and layed it down onto some foam and climbed inside. It's a perfect fit.

Gluing on the spacers for the cockpit rim

Two spacers were cut out of some good birch plywood and epoxied to the deck just outside the hole that was cut. As you can see it takes a lot of clamps to hold it into place while the epoxy cures. The cockpit rim will be glued onto the spacers. It will be about 3/4" wider than the spacers to hold the spray skirt.

More outfitting pictures are forthcoming.

Building an Outer Island Kayak