The 218th confirmed Shrike construction:

Alec Naneti from Romania already has a foam 3-part Shrike in our Gallery: https://cnckayaks.com/2017/12/14/alec-naneti-from-romania/ He has now applied his skills and original thinking to use cheap foam to build for a child a 75% scale round-bilge Vember in strip foam, and then to make it 3-part: ht...

Mac, in my experience a tandem kayak with rocker is useful when the stern paddler is the only paddler, perhaps when the less experienced paddler in the front seat is exhausted, frightened or sea-sick. In a tandem with rocker the solo stern paddler can more easily turn up-wind with the rudder retract...

Mac, yes, of course an open water crossing of several miles during the passage of a front when "all that could be seen was white water and strong gusts" demands a different design of tandem and a different level of skill to those required for a picnic trip on Loch Lomond on a quiet day. I presume th...

Gordon, that's good. Get a stable tandem with a rudder and you will be able to paddle it even if your partner stops paddling. Plenty of rocker gives manoeuvrability, and the rudder deals with tracking. For day paddles you don't want a big load carrier, as that would stick out of the water too far wh...

Gordon, I have considerable reservations about your plan. My experience of sixty years of observing similar situations in sea kayaking, white-water kayaking, mountaineering and rock-climbing is that when you think of a planned outing with a nervous beginner, you should halve the planned severity, co...

As you suggest, the only part of the sailing rig that cannot easily be fitted after the hull and deck are completed is a strut down from the mast step to the keel. In my case, I fitted a second skeg in the bow to improve windward performance, and the mast step is supported by the skeg box. To retro-...

Smooth lines and good work from Stefanos in Greece. This is the 216th confirmed construction of a Shrike.

Craig, I will need to do some calculations before advising you. Meanwhile you could use the PM system via the contact point to the right of each post to tell me a little more about your kayaking experience, type of paddling envisaged, etc. Keeping all other variables constant,(which you can't), redu...

Federico from near Turin, Italy, is making good progress:

Chris at Selkie Kayaks has a novel idea. If you can get together a group of 4 to 8 fellow paddlers, and supply a suitable venue, he will supervise a 9 day course, at the end of which you can each go home with a completed Shrike for £1,000. That includes anywhere in the U.K: https://selkiekayaks.co.u...

In Luxembourg, a young lady glasses the hull. This will be the second Shrike in her family.

I proved that my original difficulty with the offside roll was lack of flexibility. One way of checking is to paddle directly away from a point (drop the skeg, if fitted, to maintain direction while coasting) then look to your right to see if you can twist around far enough to see the point. Then tr...

Spikeedog wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 19, 2019 6:49 pm

I used a modified wooden egg cup and stainless steel rod mounted on a wooden plate that sits under the deck. Works and looks great.

Spikeedog, that's a good solution. I guess beech is a suitable timber: https://bit.ly/2kW3cRE
Nick.

The local 3d printing route hasn't worked so I've been looking at surfboard leash plugs, mock up in the pictures above. 20 of those are very inexpensive. I can drill the hole with a forstner bit and have a backing plate under the deck I think Oisin, that looks to be a good solution, provided it can...

My reading tells me that the long overhangs enable the kayak to rise up onto an ice floe when the kayak is paddled firmly towards the floe, either forward or astern. I guess the the long overhangs will also soften the motion through waves, as the buoyancy of the bow increases rather more gradually t...

Terry shortened his Shrike by removing 4 inches from the topside panels at each end, leaving the bottom panels untouched. This could be a useful modification for someone whose garage is too short to build full-size, but who wishes to preserve the stability of the full-size Shrike. https://media.ukri...

Vember on the right with raised topsides for a paddler who likes plenty of room in the cockpit, and a 110% scale lengthened Vember Expedition with the ocean cockpit option on the left:

Eagles Wang has built his Shrike (number 209)in Taiwan, our 51st country.

A specific rolling kayak will normally be used for short periods, so pointing the toes can be acceptable. My shoes are size 10 and I can use a 60 mm reduced freeboard Shrike-R. For a day trip one needs a more relaxed pose. If you want lower freeboard and you want more foot comfort you can emulate Pl...

From pages 7 and 8 of the latest version of the 48 page Build Manual (dated March 1st 2018), which comes with the free plans download at https://cnckayaks.com/shrike/downloads/: Vary the design to suit the weight of the paddler and the total planned maximum load . This can be achieved in two ways. F...

Mikko is from Finland, the 50th country to host the building of Shrikes and Vembers. This a Shrike-R, the rolling version, produced simply by reducing the height of the standard Shrike gunwales by up to 60 mm. All else is standard Shrike with the ocean cockpit option. The Shrike-R only weighs 23 pou...

Spike, that's a great plan. I build from scratch because I'm a retired old geezer, well past my three score and twenty, and a with a big enough shed, but for many folks a kit saves getting unwieldy full sheets of plywood delivered, and then cutting them into strips before cutting out the component p...

Chris Tipper of Selkie Kayaks, Newhaven, has produced a kit of machine pre-cut parts to build a Shrike. Shrike kits have been available in the U.S.A and Canada for several years, but this is the first in the U.K that is available for purchase. Chris Tipper is a craftsman trying to set up a small bus...