Last spring I had to take down a black locust tree from my back yard. Much as it pained me to do so it has now given me three good projects: First, removing it made way for my workshop, second the large trunk will become frames for the sailing dinghy I’m building, and third, and to the point here, the locust provided the bending stock for the ribs in this new qajaq frame. These are a few shots of the splitting process that gave me the rough blanks for the ribs that I then band-sawed and planed to finished sizes: 
I had two goals for this boat. I wanted a much flatter deck than my last qajaq, and I wanted to deal with the very stiff turning it exhibited. I did the first by dropping the masik even lower, and I think I’ve now reached a profile that’s more consistent with historical specimens. For the turning, I’ve added a fair bit of rocker as well as a little more volume in the bow, with the hope that when I lean it that that volume will come into play and shorten my waterline, something that didn’t happen in my last boat.
The boat is 18.25″ inches wide and 17′2″ long. The gunwales are spruce, the stringers red cedar, the ribs black locust. The keel stringer is random SPF I had on hand.
The spruce I had on hand wasn’t nearly long enough, at about 7′6″, but it was so clear and straight that it just wanted to be a set of gunwales. I ripped the plank into gunwale blank lengths I could resaw both gunwales from, and scarfed it with the traditional bird’s beak scarf, but instead of lashing I used epoxy to hold the scarfs firm. The gunwales bend perfectly fairly around the scarfs.
You’d think I had enough qajaqs… But I just had to build another. It was to travel to the World Traditional Games in Montreal next month, but they have been cancelled due to some funding errors. I don’t know if the Greenlanders will still be coming to visit, so our holiday may turn into a non-paddling vacation.
This qajaq is considerably flatter on the bottom than the previous ones I’ve built - I’m hoping that will help with my forward recovery handrolls, which have been eluding me. I might decide to leave this boat in Vancouver for wednesday night rolling practice.
