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Vancouver man builds ultra-light kayaks

Very cool. I wonder how durable that fabric is and how resilient the tubing is for this application: but you sure can't argue with a boat that only weighs in the range of 10 lbs.
I like his attitude and his curiosity.
 
Thanks for the reference to my web site, http://www.cubenmaker.com. I just got back from a few months in Europe and am back to work on my latest Cuben Fiber kayak project. I'm just making patterns for the skin for the frame pictured in the posting above. It's been a bit tricky working out how to tape the curved stems on this boat, but I think I've got it worked out. This one is 14 feet and I hoping for a finished weight of 8 pounds. I know that sounds hard to believe, but I've been refining these things for a few years now and managing to trim weight here and there with each new boat.

I've taken two of my boats to the Powell Forest Canoe Route, the 10 pound inflatable 14 footer and the 12.9 pound skin on frame 17 footer. With the 14 footer I managed the 57 km route in two days. It was a breeze carrying a 10 pound kayak over the portages! The boats are quite tough in spite of the light weight. The only issue is abrasion, so I am careful to avoid dragging them at all. But because they are so light, it's easy to just pick them up without needing to drag them anyway. In fact it's easy enough to pick one of my boats up fully loaded to exit the water without touching the shore at all. I carried the 14 foot inflatable over some of the shorter lock portages on the Rideau Canal last year without bothering to unload the gear from the boat.

I'll be making a prototype skin for the new kayak using cheap polytarp so I can test the design and make any necessary changes before committing to Cuben, which is expensive. I'll be updating the website as the project progresses. I hope to get the finished boat in the water by July and test it out on the Powell Forest Canoe Route this summer.
 
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