Christmas Day Paddle - Happy Holidays!

Builder's Forum
1

i was posting from my phone so it looks like i left some stuff off.

wanted to wish all the forum posters Happy Holidays and best wishes for the New Year . i live in the Capital area and was blessed with a calm, serene day and 50 degrees on the farenheight scale. Light winds and sublime quiet early this morning made it no better time for some holiday paddling along the Potomac. Mother nature even threw in a rainbow over Georgetown! As Nick Schade likes to remind us from time to time - we build to use - and nothing feels better than taking what ya built…and using it.
Home in time for the noise of a big family gathering starting at noon :slight_smile:

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2

Nice!

Tell us about the boat. It’s different and I like it.

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Hi Steve,
the boat is a modified microbootlegger sport. start with the stock microbootlegger - remove 1.5 strips (to lower its profile by 1 inch) and flatten out the rear deck - built of Paulownia at ~ 27 lbs fully rigged. easy on and off even for an old man like me :slight_smile:

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4

What finish did you use? Is that the natural paulawnia?

-Steve

5

Steve,

Everything you ever wanted to know about Howard’s build is here:

https://forum.clcboats.com/t/new-kayak-project-research/48367/20

Lots of good info, including discussion of his pickled deck (try saying that 10 times real fast, but not in polite company - makes a great sobriety test).

I got to see this boat at BLBF earlier this year (where it won an award). It’s quite striking.

Howard,

Even after half a century away from Southern California, 50 degrees is still too cold for me to go paddling, but I’m glad you enjoyed it. I just walked around the river, instead. See you on the water when it warms up,

Laszlo

6

thanks Laszlo. the link above was from the first experiment - the petrel play. the microbootlegger sport project is documented at this link:

we definitely need to get out when the weather warms up :slight_smile:

7

Oops. You build so many it’s hard to keep them straight.

8

Thanks for the link. I remember now following the build. That’s a very nice look.

9

Beautiful boat but how does it paddle?

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hi david,

in summary, i like how she paddles

by way of background, i currently have in the inventory a petrel, a petrel play, and a night heron that all get a lot of use and during the season. i am usually out paddling 3 to 5 times a week. the microbootlegger, which i have only had for the 2025 season, probably has ~ 250 miles under its belt so far. i weigh about 186 lbs and am 5 10 with size 10.5 feet.

here are my notes about how this boat performs.

all the boats i routinely paddle all share a similar hull shape as part of the petrel, night heron series. rounded profiles front and back and a soft chine under the seat area. this is similar to a hull you would see in a romany/NDK explorer or wilderness systems tempest.

without the skeg down, very maneuverable and responds well to leaned turns. not too hard to make it go straight when you want that. but with a bit of skeg, she locks in and drives straight as an arrow with little to no corrective strokes required.

she is definitely capable of moving fast and if i take the pace up she responds well and does not suffer from the problem i had with the petrel play which just becomes captured in its own wave form. the sport, at 15.5 feet has almost all of that as waterline (lwl of 15.3 feet)…so by length waterline/speed potential she is significantly longer than the 13.1 lwl for the petrel play, slightly longer than 15 feet lwl for the petrel, and a tad shorter than the 16 feet lwl for the night heron but avoids the 18 foot package. i have a regular exercise paddle of 2.5 nautical miles that i routinely cover in about 40 minutes (works out to about 4.3 mph) with this boat.,…this is pushing harder than a leisurly paddle…, but not a sprint.

she has less rocker then the petrels…and more equivelent to the night heron. so while generally easy to spin around without skeg, a bit more effort then the petrels.

the bow does not have signficant flare given the destroyer design so she tends to stay level in small chop and cuts through it vs bouncing over it. when i catch a sharp boat wake, its good that i paddle with a skirt.

as discussed in the build blog…i built the boat for flatwater and took volume out of it above the waterline so this wave piercing tendency is going to be more than a standard microbootlegger. so i would be remiss to take the boat into bigger seas where i would be more comfortable in the petrel. that said, when its windy, there is not a lot of windage and i can handle high winds in flat water better than a boat with more volume. i have had her out in 20 knts breeze with stronger gusts and was able to keep her moving.

the boat has good primary and secondary stability…so she does not strike me as tippy…

the boat is narrower than the petrel play at only 22 inches max width so one other thing i have noticed is a lot less accidental paddle strikes on the deck. (the petrel play is 23 inches and the petrel and night heron are only 20 inches wide)

the boat is relatively roomy compared to a petrel and similar to the petrel play.

overall, a fun boat…and an interesting look. not a classic greenland design but i still get a lot of nice comments from passersby at the launch site and on the water.

h

11

just a follow-up on what it looks like in a 20 knt breeze on flat water…

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you can see the leaves and small wind-driven sput-m and micro-chop. this is a well protected creek from a wave form and wind perspective so it takes a lot of breeze to get whitecaps in here- about a mile away where it opened up to the bay they were recording 3 to 4 foot steep chop.

12

looks like you had a great paddle. boat has far more bow rocker than I had assumed it to have. I assumed that the lower edge of the bow would be submerged.

13

Hi David,

if the conditions are calm, she sits and paddles on her line with the bow knuckle on the water. remember, this is a 20 kts headwind and short wave form. the wind is pushing my body hard above the center of gravity pushing the stern down and the bow up…also the short chop creates little moments of the bow knuckle being more exposed.

the two pictures below in calmer conditions, and my own experience, is she sits right at the design waterline (note the design displacement on the microbootlegger sport is a rather lithe 224lbs. so roughly, the boat weighs 30 lbs, i weigh 185 and add lifejacket, skirt, paddle and clothes for another 15 lbs…and you are right at design displacement).

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interestingly, the other boats in the petrel/night heron family are in the 250 lbs design displacement category - so its not hard to be overweight in the microbootlegger sport… i think its actually odd that a boat that is rated good for a ‘large’ person would have such a low design diplacement. i generally want to be close but on the light of the design displacement - not significantly over as it quickly slows things down.

if i was loading the boat up for touring and building a boat closer to 40 lbs…it doesn’t take a lot of hard math to be 30 to 40 lbs over design displacement…

h

14

Howard,

It’s like with small planes and their max payload ratings. The max is a max, not a typical mission loadout. Certain missions are just not feasible, depending on the size of the paddler. While the large paddler may not be able to load the boat up for touring and and overnight camping, they can still grab a bottle of water and a granola bar and have fun paddling for hours without exceeding the design displacement.

For that matter, I’ve always regarded design displacement as a serving suggestion that can be ignored if the paddler knows what they’re doing. Sure, you may not win any races plowing through the water with the design waterline submerged (though in a windy choppy bay with a lot of wakes you may be surprised at what extra weight does for you), but you can still have fun in a compact boat that weighs less than the one that “fits”. For those without your expertise in building lightweight boats, the easiest way to go lighter is to go smaller. As long as there’s enough spare flotation for the current conditions, it’s a viable solution when speed is not the goal.

Laszlo

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Hi Lazlo,

understood, i just thought it was ‘interesting’ after inspecting the design displacement of the petrel/nighthawk series that the typical design displacement for a nick schade ‘full-size’ kayak was in the 250 range and that the microbootlegger was only in the 220 range.

i have been noodling my latest project… turbocharged with AI’s ability to analyze and explore multiple options in minutes that, before these tools, would have just taken days…and happened into the rabbit hole of design displacement and quickly assembled some table for study including nick’s and other designers designs.

it just struck me, similar to what we hear in the general news that the average adult american male has gotten signficantly bigger over time…and what is considered ‘average’ vs ‘large’ today (basically large is the new average). …such that when you put it all together… if a kayak designed is designing a general touring kayak for an average adult male…they probably want to have the design displacement up in the 250 range. (again design displacement includes the weight of the boat, the paddler and gear they wear plus anything placed inside the boat - additional safety gear, paddle, water, lunch etc)

so as i think about my latest project,… i am shooting in that area as even when i am travelling light (think summer) , the boat (in my case is still 30 lbs) and clothes and gear and a single water bottle is an easy 10 plus my 185 with nothing on puts me right at about 225… lunch not included :()

h

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