Shearwater 16

We've built a handful of Shearwaters and scores of Chesapeakes. I think the elapsed building time of the two boats is about the same. We kept an eye on the hours when we built the second Shearwater 17 and it was about 80 hours total. That was moving fast, and often with two people working on it at once.

There are no scarfs to glue and no sheerclamps to plane on the standard Shearwater, and that reduces time compared to the Chesapeake. You gain all of that back in putting the Shearwater's deck on. Actually, you have the deck on and off about four times in the process of assembling it. None of the processes are any more difficult than the Chesapeake, just different.

Yes, it matters.  The first layer is the all-encompassing layer; the second is just on the bottom panels, and third come the bow and stern reinforcement.

There are two problems with doing that in reverse order: First, you might get an air bubble at the edge of the layers that end short. Second, if the smaller patches shift beneath the all-over sheet, you'll have the devil of a time getting them back in place.

You want to apply all the layers DRY, and then wet them out with epoxy together at the same time.

The sequence for the standard Shearwater is thus: Wire the hull up like any other CLC boat, install fillets, etc. Wire together the deck (with a few temporary forms providing the deck camber), apply "tack welds" to the deck, and wire it onto the hull. Take the deck back off to finish the fillets and fiberglass on the deck. Like most of the hull, the deck is fiberglassed on both sides; there are about four layers of 'glass right behind the cockpit. At a last you wire the deck on for good and apply fillets to the hull-to-deck joint.

The Shearwater Hybrid process is different: there are temporary forms upon which the stripped deck is assembled, and the hull has the usual CLC sheerclamps to which the strip deck is ultimately fastened once the forms are removed. Definitely takes more time to build, but a fraction of the time of an all-strip hull.

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

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.