Proceed to cutting and jointing the bilges. This step is done quite quickly as I’ve now had plenty of experiences. I read the offset – table directly from the FreeShip software, then draw the bilges on the 122 x 244 – cm plywood sheet. For the 17 feet hull, there’re 3 pieces per bilges, and hence, 2 joints need to be made for each bilges. I clamp 2 plywood sheets together and cut the port & starboard parts at the same time.

It takes some little skills and experiences to make the joints perfectly fit with just a jig saw. And I still prefer the straight finger joints as used on my previous boat, they are simpler to cut, simpler to align and to make sure that the jointed bilges are in correct shapes. Too bad, my plywood is of too poor in quality, it’s so fragile, so easy to crack, so I have to take extra cares at this steps, or the “fingers” of the joints could break.

First image: transferring the lines from offset table to plywood boards (with the help of a cup of coffee, be careful not to make any mistake). Second image: all pieces cut, third image: the finger joints (no glueing yet). Fourth image: jointing the pieces together with epoxy (just use many weights to press on), then glassing them (the internal sides) with one layer of 6 – oz fiberglass.

Decided not to bevel the bilges’ edges, though beveling helps making tighter seams, my plywood is quite thin, so the seams wouldn’t be very perfect, they hardly could stay precisely edge on edge with each other (and beveling adds some more works to be done). With Serene – 2, I proceed with the hull first, then the deck, not doing them in parallel like my previous boat, as the deck part could be quite complex this time.

Framing for the deck is more complex than the hull, since the deck would be curved in cross section, it require torturing plywood to a considerable degree to acquire that shape. From my previous experiences with bending plywood panels, I decided to break the deck framing into 2 parts, one is female, the other is male in shapes, then compressing the plywood sheet in between using many G – clamps.

First and second images: cutting the deck framing stations, can see clearly that the upper and lower parts of the deck frame are cut from the shame plywood sheets. Unlike the hull’s stations, which is positioned at an interval of 60 cm apart, the deck’s stations are placed denser, one for every 30 cm. The deck plywood would be tortured between these upper and lower stations to achieve the desired curved shape.

Bending plywood, particularly the 4 – mm thich ply I’m using, could be a hard task (and currently I don’t have any 3 – mm or thinner ply readily for making the deck). More over, the plywood I purchased is not of very good quality, it could crack too easily. So I would need lots of tricks to get the job done: soaking wet the plywood overnight with water to soften it, using hot boiling water to soften it even more.

(Currently I don’t have any wood steaming device, and there’s no plan to build one just yet.) Another trick for bending plywood is making shallow cuts longitudinally onto one side of the plywood sheet for it to bend easier. Fourth image: the curved stations of the deck glued on. Now all jobs related to the framing is done, next would be proceeding to cutting and joining the bilges… the long and hard way is still ahead!

Simple thing that is done many times already, since the very first time I was building the Hello World -3 kayak, so there is nothing special about setting up the “female” frame for shaping up the kayak hull and deck. The stations (as called so by the software FreeShip) are placed evenly at an interval of 60 cm, there are 8 of them for the 17 feet (approximately 518 cm) hull. All is cut from 18 mm – thick MDF.

First image: the stations cut, second and third images: since the 18 mm – thick MDF I used is at the maximum that my compress – air staple gun could handle, I simple glue the stations on along a MDF board, each 60 cm apart. You can see the stations numbered, from H1 to H8 (from stern to bow). Fourth image: another view of the completed female frame, looking this way, one could see that the kayak hull is so slim. It’s so indeed!

At 44 cm, this Serene – 2 kayak is just slightly narrower compared to my previous boat. Serene – 1, which was at 45 cm. One of the main reasons why it took me so long to start this kayak building is that, I greatly appreciate my previous boat’s abilities in rough water, it did give me a lots of confidence. I wouldn’t want to lose that very special capabilities along my design progress, while improving some shortcomings…

…That my previous kayak had had. It is a very good feeling watching the “female – molding” frame, which gives me a very first impression on how my future boat would look like. But the long way is still ahead, it would take much efforts in completing my “perfect sea kayak”! By the way, the “rule” for choosing a sea kayak hull is that: build / buy a longest and thinnest one that you could still find it controllable and comfortable!

Not entirely related to this Serene – 2 building, but I would want re – organize my woodworking workshop a bit. My working place is quite small in floor area, so everything need to be stored neatly and tidily. Having quit some ideas, but would carry them out only one at a time, since I still have limited free time in the present. First is a shelf to store my plywood and MDF sheets (lots of them), and many other things.

The plywood and MDF sheets need special treatments, they could deform in shape or absorb moisture if stored inappropriately for a long time. The shelf would have two sides, the sloping side is for storing the sheets, and the other side is reserved for other things. The whole thing would be put on 6 small wheels so that it can be pulled and repositioned around the workshop, or moved just for cleaning the floor.

1^st image: making the shelf base, 2^nd image: the 3 supporting walls (to withstand the MDF and ply sheets’ weight, which could be very heavy). 3^rd image: the shelf taking shape, 4^th image: the completed and marine – blue painted product, ply and MDF sheets stored on one side (facing the wall). I need lots of shelf spaces to store various miscellaneous assets, which is growing to a unmanageable number.

Sometime, I’ve forgotten that I’ve purchased something just because there’s a huge pile of them around. The workshop looks very tidy now, having more spaces to store various things. It’s very important to keep thing tidy, uncluttered, as you wouldn’t want to waste time finding an item when needed. It’s now time to move on to the main parts of the project, I’ve been lingering around on other issues for long enough.

First image: assembling the rudder’s components, the rudder in its dropped down position, 2^nd image: the rudder in its retracted position. Everything works smoothly as calculated, the blade could be pulled up and down by a pair of line running back to behind the cockpit (but that would be done later, when attaching the rudder to the kayak hull), with two circular ratchets glued on the two side of the rudder blade.

4^th image: the rudder stained with colored – epoxy and then painted (with transparent PU – PolyUrethane). It looks so nice, the dark brown color with coarse wooden grains. The rudder control system is another complex problem, but that I would address it later on on the following phases of this building project, as I’m still hesitating between the two styles of rudder steering mechanisms as described below.

One style is the T – bar of those Olympic kayak, and the other is the normal 2 – pedals usually found on touring boats. The Olympic style is simpler, but it’s quite counter – intuitive as you would have to use the left leg kicking the bar to the right, in order for the boat to turn right. The 2 – pedals system is more user – friendly, you simply kick with the right leg to turn right. I also may use kind of a cross between the two mechanisms.

This is the first time I use a rudder, so many consideration and calculation have to be made. First in designing the hull, the hull should work efficiently and independently without a rudder, that is, it should track straight in most circumstances. Only under extreme turbulences that the rudder should be deployed, to save yourself from the extreme fatigue of one side paddling, or to have more responsiveness to the moving water.

Skeg, rudder or none!? It has always been an everlasting debate among the sea kayaker community. Some advocates using none, as getting the job done with your paddles alone would greatly improves your skills. While I partially agree to this argument, I also think that the argument only holds true on flat water only. When in turbulences, which could be extreme, you would need something to assist in tracking and steering the boat.

All my previous kayaks was using skegs. While a skeg wouldn’t help in steering, it would help a lot keeping the boat on a straight track when underway. Gradually, and especially in my last 9 – days trip, I realize that a rudder could potentially become a great benefit. You could pull it up to reduce drag (with a retractable rudder) and maneuver the boat with your paddle alone when it’s relatively calm, and deploy it down in turbulences.

Not only it helps turning your boat to compensate leeway, it’s also a way to have instant responsiveness, e.g: to deal with large chasing waves. So I decided to overcome my fear of complexity and build a rudder for my next Serene – 2 kayak. Yet, complexity is the reason most pro – skeg paddlers would give, to justify their favor for skeg. But serious sea – paddlers would agree, I think, that rudder outperforms skeg in most situations.

It’s not too complex (as it seems) to draft out the rudder’s parts on wood. 1^st image: elements of the rudder, 2^nd and 3^rd images: gluing them together. 4^th image: the rudder blade is (like they usually call) a high – aspect – ratio foil, 10 x 50 cm in dimensions. The 2 circular discs: ratchets for pulling the blade up and down. Now, I definitely think I could build a rudder that would work, both efficiently and reliably!

The structure of the hatches is nothing fancy, three tight rings nested inside each other per hatch, two belongs to the lid, and the other would be attached to the base (deck). First image: the 9 rings forming 3 hatches, filled with some thinned epoxy (about 400 gram of epoxy) to harden the MDF. This is not a very good way to make hatches (weight wise), but it would be just as heavy (or lighter) compared to plastic ones.

I was thinking a lot about the hatch locking mechanism. But finally decided to just use cords and cleats to tie down the hatches. The metal locks are too complex and fragile, unendurable to salt water. Tying down the hatches is much simpler and secured, and is easy to repair when something breaks. Between the 2 rings of the lid is a thin layer (about 3 mm) of epoxy (the softer, elastic kind) filled in to function as a gasket.

At first, I intended to glass in and out of each of the hatches’ rings, but the 9 mm – thick MDF walls have absorbed enough epoxy, and have become really strong (maybe more than enough, they’re now a bit too heavy), so there’s no need for glassing. The good thing is that once everything is assembled together, they fit very tightly, the lids and the bases, and the dark brown color is stained nicely too!

3^rd image: the complete products, lids opened, 4^th image: the lids closed. Once I’ll finish building up the kayak’s deck, the hatches would simply be glued on. Only the front hatch needs some special treatments, as the front deck is curved in shape. Also, the compass would be mounted right on this front hatch lid, to save deck space, and to simplify the building process. But that would be another later phase of this project.

Had a major setback with making the hatches with wooden strips, the strips didn’t make perfect circles as I’ve expected, although they bend quite well, they’re off by small amount (e.g: 0.5 ~ 1 mm) here and there, and that’s an unacceptable precision for hatches, just a small gap and water could leak in. I had to abandon the method of making hatches using wooden strips, and tried to find some alternative ways instead.

Finally, I resorted to cutting the hatches’ rings (lips) using my routing table. The home – built machine is made quite a long time ago, but this is only the first time making some serious use of it. It’s quick to make a circular cutting jig, as shown in the 1^st image: the MDF “disc” would rotate around a pivot point that could be adjusted by sliding the wooden bar. The jig proved to offer good cutting accuracy (sub millimeter).

That’s really good, as I want very tight fits between the hatches’ rings, 3^rd image: 2 rings cut, there’re still lots of it to be made. Using solid MDF as hatches’ rings has a serious down side: you would need to fill the MDF with much epoxy for it to be hardened, and waterproof, thus increasing the overall weight. On the other side, MDF is easy to cut into perfect shapes! Decided to go this way anyhow as I have few material choices!

Last image: all the hatches’ rings is cut, 3 hatches, 3 lips per hatch, and 2 rings per lip (since they’re cut in 1.5 cm MDF, it requires 2 rings to form a 3 cm height lip), quite some work to be done, and too much of sawing dust too! And I’ve taken care on “quality assurance” to make sure that each ring is cut at its precise diameter. Though I don’t expect the hatches to be waterproof, it should be watertight as much as possible.

I’ve been thinking about kayak hatches over and over again. Starting from the very early days with my plywood hatches (in Hello World – 2, 3) which are obviously not watertight, to the Beckson hatches on my Serene – 1 kayak. The Beckson is very good, watertight and even air tight, but sadly that’s only true in ideal conditions. In reality, in multiple days trip, when mud and sand has get into, it would leak by a small amount.

The Beckson is not ideal hatch for kayak in my idea (for other purposes, it may be ok). The reason is that the hatches are built flushed with the mounting surface, and some inner elements are even recessed… When the water washes over (as always happened to the very low freeboard of a sea kayak), and when the O – rings are not properly lubricated, or when there’re some mud, sand inside the joints, water would leak in.

That’s why I decided to build my own hatches for this Serene – 2 new kayak. The idea is really simple: the hatches are raised a few centimeters above the mounting surface, and even when the seals are not too tight, that would suffice to keep most of the water out. Examine many sea kayak hatch designs, I’ve found out that simple thing, that the hatches should be raised (not flushed or recessed) above the deck.

1^st image: cutting thin (2.5 mm) wooden strips used to build the hatches. 2^nd, 3^nd images: the 3 MDF templates for hatch building: the rear, the front and the day hatch, sizes in diameter: 30, 25 and 20 cm respectively. 4^th image: building the hatches’ coaming with thin wooden strips around the templates, each coaming consists of 2 layers of strips which bend easily around without cracks and without the need for steaming.

Finished with Serene – 2‘s first paddle, continue to the second one. This would be the pair of paddles, one Greenland style, and one Euro style, that I would use on the new kayak, intended to be slightly smaller in size, and much more lightweight compared to my previous ones. The Greenland paddle is not a typical Greenland one, it’s rather quite short with bigger blades, and the Euro paddle is not of typical Euro style neither.

As it is quite small compared to most Euro style paddles. It’s quite hard to justify my design decisions, but all came from my paddling experiences, that I would need a slightly bigger Greenland paddle for all – round paddling, and a slightly smaller Euro paddle to provide more power in “adversary” conditions. The second one would be lightly & simply built also, with that same kind of rattan shaft, and thin plywood blades.

1^st image: the finished Greenland paddle. 2^nd image: dry fitting the Euro paddle’s blades and shaft. 3^th image: bending the plywood blades, I want them to be just slightly curved around the longitudinal axis, it’s just nearly impossible to bend the plywood around multiple axes, to decided to stay with the simplest blade design. After gluing the blades and shaft together, the paddle would receive a layer of fiberglass all around.

4^th image: glassing the second paddle, next to it is the finished Greenland paddle, the pair of paddles near completion, they all need to be “trialled” soon, to evaluate their performances, and to see how they would behave in real world. Final weights, the Greenland paddle: 0.82 kg, the Euro paddle: 0.9 kg, not up to the “standards” yet, but quite near, that’s fine anyhow, as they’re very light (compared to my previous paddles).

The first image: cutting two hardwood blocks to attach to the paddle’s 2 ends, 2^nd image: scraping the paddle blades with a power planer and a spokeshave. 3^rd image: the paddle takes its final shape, next it would be sanded, colored (stained with thinned epoxy), glassed then painted. The paddle would receive a layer of fiberglass all over the body, to waterproof the porous balsa wood, and to strengthen the whole structure.

This is only the first of two paddles I’d intended to build. A lightweight Greenland paddle would be my convenient, all – round thing to propel the boat with. But under some particular circumstances, e.g: very strong wind or current, I would need a more powerful tool, that’s why my next one would be a paddle of the usual Euro type, it would be also very lightly built, and has much smaller blades, around 50 x 14 cm in dimensions.

I’ve not yet to really realize which paddle type is better: Greenland or Euro, but thought that they all has their uses in different situations, and decided to build and use… both. Also, my paddles all has become smaller and shorter, their lengths now are around 1.85 ~ 1.9 m. My thought is that sea – kayakers nowadays are using paddles that are longer than needed (around 2.2 m), especially those going for long touring.

I made a terrible mistake, using the wrong duct tape to mask the paddle for coloring. A kind of 3M duct tape is so sticky that it’s extremely hard to be removed after having painted the paddle blades with colored – thinned – epoxy. I seriously scratch the surface while removing the duct tape (with a chisel) resulting in a very poor finish on one blade. The paddle would be perfectly usable, but not as good – looking as I’d expected.

Still don’t have some free times to start my Serene – 2 kayak building yet, and all preparations (mainly materials purchasing) has not been completed. So I start slowly with building some other miscellaneous objects. First are the paddles. A typical WRC (Western Red Cedar) Greenland paddle weights around 0.7 ~ 0.8 kg. My two paddles, built with tropical hardwoods, though durable, weigh too much: 1.3 ~ 1.5 kg.

A lightweight paddle has very obvious advantages on long journeys, and I’ve been thinking about resolving this weighting issue. So I’ve decided to realize an idea which I’ve been having for a long while, in a tropical country like Vietnam, the best material you could use for a paddle is… rattan. Rattan is very lightweight, but it’s also very durable, flexible, and stiff, an ideal material to be used for building the paddle’s shaft.

In order to keep weight to minimum, in combination with the rattan stick, I use balsa wood for the blades. Construction is quite simple indeed, the rattan stick is splitted into two halves at the two ends, and two balsa wood blocks are inserted to form the blades’ shape (see the 3^rd image). Balsa wood is quite hard to acquire in Vietnam, I’d made the wood block from 6 small 5 – mm – thick balsa sheets, laminated together.

Next is the job of careful – carving down the blades’ shapes. The 4^th image: empty spaces at the two ends of the paddle, that would be the places for two hardwood blocks in order to better resist against cracks upon physical impact. The paddle would receive a layer of glass to further strengthen the structure and to protect it against water. Balsa is too porous and without protection, it would takes on water in the long term.