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Night Heron - High Deck
Sale
Night Heron - High Deck
Sale
Night Heron - High Deck
Sale
Night Heron - High Deck
Night Heron - High Deck Thumbnail
Night Heron - High Deck Thumbnail
Night Heron - High Deck Thumbnail
Night Heron - High Deck Thumbnail

Night Heron - High Deck

Builder Testimonials

A strip-planked Night Heron with more room for long legs and big feet.

  • Skill Level Intermediate
  • Estimated Build Time 150 Hours

Builders will benefit from some woodworking, epoxy, and fiberglass experience. Compared to CLC's "Beginner" projects, there will be more cutting and fitting of parts, and documentation is less comprehensive.

This time estimate assumes builders have already built a couple of stitch-and-glue boats.

Build this boat if...

  • You are taller than average and are seeking a kayak with more room for your legs and feet
  • You want a kayak that will move efficiently and quickly through the water
  • You want a kayak with a low stern deck so you can lean your body back

  • For Woodcrafters

    Boatbuilders, sharpen your block planes! 

  • Sophisticated Design

    Nothing else like it to buy or build

  • Need for Speed

    For racers seeking escape velocity

If you love woodworking, this is a project where you get to make wood shavings. You'll need to be comfortable with a sharp plane and a Japanese pull-saw, but the reward is a work of craftsmanship that's all your own.

This is a design with qualities and features that are unique in the marketplace, both among DIY projects and production boats. Refined, tested, uncompromised, outstanding, and unique!

It's hard to find designs like this in the production world. Combining the strength and light weight of wood-epoxy composites with simplified construction, this one's designed to be fast and fun.

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Take One of our Boatbuilding Classes

We offer classes for many of the boats we sell. Teaching sites stretch from Maryland to Washington State and from Maine to California. Click here to find out more.
Night Heron - High Deck
Night Heron - High Deck
Night Heron - High Deck
Night Heron - High Deck
Night Heron - High Deck Thumbnail
Night Heron - High Deck Thumbnail
Night Heron - High Deck Thumbnail
Night Heron - High Deck Thumbnail

Specifications

Length
18'0"
Beam
20"
Cockpit Size
29" x 16"
Hull Weight
40 lbs.
Paddler Weight
150 - 220 lbs.
Max Payload
300 lbs.
Knee Height
12"
Max. Men's Shoe Size
13

Performance

Stability

2 out of 5
Very Tippy
Very Stable

Speed

4 out of 5
Cruiser
Racer

Cockpit Room

1 out of 5
Close Fit
Huge Cockpit

Payload

2 out of 5
Day Tripper
Freight Hauler

Ease of Construction

2 out of 5
Requires Patience
Very Easy
Night Heron High-Deck being paddled during the Wooden Boat Festival in 2012.
Night Heron High-Deck being paddled during the Wooden Boat Festival in 2012.

Overview

The Night Heron - High Deck is exactly the same as the regular deck Night Heron below the sheer line. The deck has been bumped up for a little more leg room and more storage volume. This boat will maintain the performance characteristics of the standard deck version, but provide more room for taller paddlers.

The Night Heron line is an evolutionary branch of Nick Schade's line of Guillemot kayaks. Nick studies the lines of the Inuit Boats of Greenland for some of his hull shaping inspiration. This boat brings the volume of the hull out towards the ends more for a higher prismatic coefficient, which means good efficiency at faster speeds. It has fairly hard chines with no concave sections. A slight lean will allow the boat to turn easily. The low back deck permits the paddler to lean back so their head touches the back deck. The foredeck is high enough that most paddlers will be able to get their legs in and out while sitting down. 

Widely admired for its beauty, an example of this design was accepted in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art, but that does not detract from its on-water performance where it is fast and efficient and surfs very easily. It is a secure boat in rough water and responds well playing in the surge of rock gardens.

At 20" wide this is a narrow boat, however it is not scary to paddle. Even novice paddlers quickly get comfortable. The boat tracks well with good balance and is quite fast. It is very easy to roll and to perform various braces.

Do you fit in this kayak?  Study our kayak fit chart.

Our strip-built and hybrid kits ship with 50% Western Red and 50% Alaskan Yellow cedar bead & cove strips. Photos on our website and printed materials may show patterns and accent strips with walnut or other materials. Optional walnut strips are available and can be shipped with kit orders. 

Buying Options

Choose Your Boatbuilding Experience

Select the components that are the best fit for your strip-planking project.

  1. Select Your Configuration

    Build From a Kit:
    Most builders start with the Base Kit. It’s all there.
    Build From Scratch:
    Build from scratch using our Plans & Manual.
    Build From a Wood Parts Only Kit:
    For those who have their own supply of epoxy, fiberglass, and hardware.
    Forms and Strongback Only Kit:
    Just the computer-cut stuff: the forms and strongback.
    Order Study Plans or Manuals:
    Like to study up a bit first? Download study plans or a copy of the assembly manual. 

  2. Choose Options and Add-Ons

    Additional Components:
    You can choose colors for your strips! Also add rudders, hatch options, spray skirts, and more. 

  3. Get Building!

    Kits feature all of the latest tweaks to ease assembly, including slot-together molds, CNC-cut marine plywood cockpit recesses, and precision-milled strips.

Standard Configuration

Sale
$2,049.00 $1,740.00

This Night Heron kit includes The Strip-Built Sea Kayak, draw...

This Night Heron kit includes The Strip-Built Sea Kayak, drawings, CNC-cut forms & strongback, hatch blanks, epoxy kit, fiberglass, precision-milled bead-and-cove Western Red & Alaskan Yellow cedar strips, foam "tractor" seat, Rapid Pulse backband, Keepers footbraces, and hardware.

Alternative Configurations

$1,449.00

This Night Heron kit includes drawings, CNC-cut forms & s...

This Night Heron kit includes drawings, CNC-cut forms & strongback, hatch blanks, and precision-milled bead-and-cove Western Red & Alaskan Yellow cedar strips. Typical "wood parts only" kit buyers have an existing or ready supply of their own epoxy, fiberglass, and hardware.
$395.00

This Night Heron kit includes drawings, and CNC-cut forms &am...

This Night Heron kit includes drawings, and CNC-cut forms & strongback.
$240.00

This Night Heron kit includes drawings, and CNC-cut forms.

This Night Heron kit includes drawings, and CNC-cut forms.

plans
$129.00

Additional Options

$75.00

Nick Schade suggests MiniCel Foam for bulkheads in his boats....

Nick Schade suggests MiniCel Foam for bulkheads in his boats. Two 3-inch blocks ready for fitting.
$195.00

Many kayaks can benefit from a retractable skeg. There will b...

Many kayaks can benefit from a retractable skeg. There will be conditions in which no skeg is needed at all, other occasions when just a little skeg will help, and days in smooth water with a strong breeze over the aft quarter when a skeg is essential.

The Skeg Kit is comprised of three basic components: the skeg itself, the skeg box where the skeg lives in the boat, and the control slider. The skeg is a fin that can be retracted in and out. The skeg box is just big enough and wide enough to hold the skeg. The control slider is mounted up near the cockpit where it is convenient to the paddler.
$24.95

A kit for flush hatch hold-downs, requiring no deck hardware ...

A kit for flush hatch hold-downs, requiring no deck hardware to sully your strip-planked deck. Internally mounted bungies hook to hatches. Includes machined wooden parts, hardware, and instructions. Read the instructions here.

Kit includes enough material for two hatches. Specifically: eight wooden blocks, bungie cord, stainless steel hooks, and hatch cover reinforcements.

Almost any hatch system, flush or otherwise, will work with the Invisible Hatch Hold Down scheme. These kayak kits include flush hatch kits: Shearwaters, Arctic Hawk, Sea Island Sport, Night Heron S&G and all Guillemot strip-planked kayaks.

 
$21.95

By Nick Schade. 202 pages, 1998. "Strip-building" - assemblin...

By Nick Schade. 202 pages, 1998. "Strip-building" - assembling a pile of thin wood strips into a functional hull - has been a popular canoe-building method for many years. Now boatbuilder Nick Schade, an engineer by training and a self-professed sea kayaking addict, has refined this time-tested method to build the more complex shapes of sea kayaks. The method is simple, forgiving, allows a liberal amount of design flexibility, and requires a minimum number of tools.

In The Strip-Built Sea Kayak, Schade presents full plans for three elegant designs inspired by the grace and seaworthiness of the Inuit and Aleut skin boats. Profusely illustrated instructions provide the details that will guide you through the process.

Videos

Building a Night Heron kayak from SCRATCH

Making a Strip Built Kayak - Introduction - E1

Building Kayaks with Nick Schade at the CLC Boat Show

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I order this kit?

Click on the Buying Options tab the top left of this page and follow the directions.

If I buy one of your boat kits, what else will I need?

Chesapeake Light Craft kits contain all the parts and materials you need to build the boat. The kit includes pre-cut parts, hardware, epoxy, fiberglass, plans and instructions. Our standard kayak kits also have the seats, hatches, bulkheads, footbraces, and the deck-rigging. About the only thing kits don't include is the final finish: paint or varnish. Your boat's color scheme is entirely up to you.

You'll need a few ordinary tools, like a cordless drill, a decent 5-inch sander, and for most boats a wood plane. You'll need disposables such as sandpaper and paint brushes and mixing cups.

You need a workspace a couple of feet bigger all the way around than the boat you want to build, and you'll need to be able to maintain temperatures between about 55 degrees F and 95 degrees F during steps when epoxy is being applied or curing. Since a lot of boatbuilding gets done during winter, we've written up some tips on how to heat a cold space cheaply, easily, and safely.

How much does this boat weigh and how much can it carry?

The weight and payload of this boat, along with other statistics such length and beam, can be found under Specs in the Specifications section, which is just below the lead image seen at the top of this page.

Can you send me the plans digitally?

Sorry, but until digital rights management technology for marine architectural work catches up to that used for books and music, we are unable to transmit digital plans. Currently, only study plans and manuals can be sent digitally.

Classes

Take One of our Boatbuilding Classes

We offer classes for many of the boats we sell. Teaching sites stretch from Maryland to Washington State and from Maine to California. Click here to find out more.

View Classes

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