About four years ago I completed our Shearwater Double. It is a great design which slots in between the short divorce boat tandems and the longer 21' monsters. This is a great paddling boat that may meet your needs as long as you pack smartly. Weight wise, it came in at 78# fully rigged. If I had really concentrated on building it light, I probably could have trimmed 5 pounds off that. Several pictures and my review of the boat are listed below.
I agree with Howards comments above regarding strip builds. If you stick with S&G construction you are probably looking at something that weighs 70-80#. If you go with a strip build, you will easily be 10#+ lighter. The Guillemot Double and Great Auk Double both look like they would meet your needs.
These days I have moved more towards fast paddling and am thinking of building the Panthera 2 by Bjorn Thomassen. It will be both faster and easier to load than the SWD but probebly does not have enough storage volume for week long trips.
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Sorry no pictures today, looks like CLC website is having a problem.
We launched our Shearwater Double in June 2015 and love it.
The build took 153 man-hours (67 work periods) spread over six months to complete. As usual, both the kit and build manual were exceptional. From a technical perspective, there is nothing difficult about this build, the only real issue is size. The long panels are fragile during assembly and a second set of hands really helps. With 400+ (I lost count) wire stitches, it takes a while get everything lined up and tight. There are nine full length (18.5’) filets, filets around both sides of the four bulkheads and the two cockpit recesses. Glassing, sanding and varnishing are all marathons. This is a build that takes some patience, and probably not the best first build.
The Shearwater Double is very roomy, stable and comfortable on the water. It is so stable in fact, that my wife can raise up and lay on top of the deck behind the forward cockpit with no fear of capsize. What really impresses me with the design is just how fast and maneuverable this boat is. I installed a Smart Track rudder system, but I am not convinced that this boat needs it. In tight quarters, I find the boat to be easier to maneuver with the rudder up.
For a touring boat, the SWD moves right along. My flea-weight wife (5’2”/115#) and I (5’7”/150#) have an all-day pace of ~5 mph. We did use the boat in one recreational race, covering 10k in 1:05 (5.7mph average). We could have easily taken another couple of minutes off that time, but we were so far ahead of the nearest boat at the turning mark that we relaxed and paddled easy the second half. I had paddled a 20k race the day before and did not want to kill myself again. I have paddled the boat with a friend who is a bit stronger than my wife and we can maintain a solid 6 mph but can’t sprint too much faster.
Due to its shorter length, the SWD does not have quite as much cargo capacity as some of the longer kayaks. The boat has three storage compartments and a listed total payload is listed at 575#. We can easily load all the gear needed for a weekend, but for longer trips you would have to pack smartly. The hatches in the forward and aft compartments are amply sized, but the hatch for the center compartment is rather small.
A huge positive with this design is that the cockpits are far enough apart (6’+) that the two paddlers can uncouple their stroke without fear of hitting paddles. My wife and I owned a short SOT tandem, so we know why they are called divorce boats.
Really, the only negative with the boat is the weight. The design weight is 68#, but our boat came in at 78# fully rigged. I could have probably taken a couple of pounds off that number had I concentrated on making smaller filets. While much lighter than a plastic kayak with similar payload, it is a chore to load it on the racks of our 4WD pickup. For that reason, we prefer to use our kayak trailer to transport this boat. We use a C-Tug cart to transport the kayak from the parking lot to the launch.
When we decided on the Shearwater Double, we were looking for a boat that the two of us could use to cover more distance than my wife could in her single. We are also hoping to use it for kayak camping. We definitely made the right choice.
