I wanted to update the community on my previous Kayak Couture post, a project I am working on building a 90% frej with a target weight of 22 lbs.

Since I last posted on this, I completed sanding and glassing the outside of the hulls and am busily winding up the deck-side of the hull with all the bits/structure that have to be completed prior to joining it to the hull.

From a weight perspective I am close to my target.  The pre-epoxy weight of the hull and deck was slightly below 13 lbs…which is close to my target weight for those pieces.   As a reminder, the core of the boat’s construction is 3/16 red cedar skinned in 4 oz s-glass (this is a high strength version of fiberglass that has most of the workability properties of e-glass).

The first picture is of the hull and deck post glassing.  A stain was applied and there is a bit of white cedar accents.  It also shows the layout for the hatches, rigging, and the coaming is just starting to be built out.

The next two pictures show some of the construction on the underside of the deck and the coaming work.  On the underside,  you can see patches of extra glass where the deck rigging will attach and the behind-the-hatch-opening structure-and the fairing to get clean glass work around all of this.   The deck will have ‘soft-loop’ rigging avoiding the weight of screws and bolts.  The fairing around the hatch structure allows the glass to make its way around curves and makes use of micro-balloon fairing to keep it light as it’s not really a structural element.      The coaming is all built up from the 3/16 red cedar to that element light.

The last picture is of the custom skeg/skeg box which I built.  The total assembly (skeg and box) weighs just over 4 oz but is very strong and stiff.  The skeg is red cedar core skinned in carbon fiber and the box is the 3/16 red cedar skinned with two layers of 4 oz s-glass on the inside and 1 layer or 4 oz s-glass on the outside.   It’s significantly lighter than pre-built skeg assemblies I have purchased in the past.

While 22 lbs is the goal and represents a perfect  ‘build’ according to the spreadsheets where I calculated the weight from a bill-of-materials, I think I will get pretty close to it.  I will do another weigh in when all the glass work is done but before I attach the deck to the hull.   The epoxy part is the most sensitive place for weight gain so I am working slowly and meticulously to not end up with epoxy where I don’t want it.

Anyway, it’s getting cold here…I have a small electric space heater now up and running in my workshop am writing while waiting for some bits to set up so I can start the some new tasks.   time to get back to work😊