Did you get a reply?
Bjorn Thomassen has plans for a surfski. The Spindrift.
a few KF designs over at Blue Heron kayaks as well.
NIce boat, CLC should offer a surfski version of the Pax 20 as a kit.
Wow Craig.....it looks fantastic!
i have seen pictures a while back of a similar mod.....
tell us more about your project....
would love to know the weight she came in at.....have you taken her out?...tell us about the rudder....and any of the particular challenges.
congrats on your new boat!
howard
How did you do the rudder assembly?
Hi H & C
I haven't given it a final/official weigh in yet but last time I weighed it, it was a tad over 15kgs. Have tinkered with if a bit so it probably weighs a bit more. There is not much difference between it and my commercial ski which is a 6.5 M Stellar. It is much easier to carry than my Stellar. Less swing weight because it is shorter and the hard chine rests on the hip or the shoulder nicely.
Initial challenge was the cockpit. Lots of jiggering around with templates. I made the leg hump too big which would make it difficult for shorter folk to use which negates the advantage of having an adjustable footplate. I have solved this problem by raising the seat height by a couple of inches. This of course affects stability a bit.
The feature I like most are the cut outs at the catch. A real leap of faith taking the saw to a hull. They are functional but also add a bit of character/style to the boat. I decided to make the seat are as a box rather than try and shape a timber bucket. This has allowed me to play around with the seating position. I'm still experimenting with this.
I have had it out a few times and I enjoy paddling it. At first, it felt weird compared to my other commercial skis due to the hard chines. It is much more enjoyable looking at a timber deck as well. Steering is not as responsive as my other skis. Not a problem for flatter water but at this stage I wouldn't take it out in surf conditions. The chines make it grabby in rougher, beam impinge conditions.
Tracks like a train.
The rudder is off my Stellar. Rudder box can be seen in the YouTube vids.
The hull is based on the Pax20. I raised the shear line 40mm from station 8 to bow. The beam was squeezed in a bit and moved rearward a bit. The bow flare was removed.
The deck strips are paulownia with wrc stripes.
Cheers
This vid shows some cockpit and rudder info
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fL2FgFeVoXM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DfL2FgFeVoXM
Nice job! I wrote Nick and encouraged him to make a surf ski.
I've been working on a surf ski design for a while. I haven't had the time to finalize the design and build a prototype, but here is a sketch of the design as it stands now.
- Nick
Beautiful work, Craig! So glad to see this.
Someone in Hawaii did a Pax 20 surfski, but I misplaced the photos.
Looks good Nick. I would consider buying plans just for the cockpit info.
Thanks John. Am thinking of stripping the front of my Kaholo 14 to match the Pax.
Cheers
Have finally got this out of the rafters and getting some kilometres up. Getting lots of attention as you would expect. Tracks like a train which is not a problem as I have been paddling it on our river. Has a turning circle like the Queen Mary so I don't think I would like to take it out in open water or anything rough. Some rocker would get nice.