Kaile Kanu

I have had this idea in my head for a few years, now… A canoe for Kaile! Being short and light, Kai can’t really paddle a normal one man unless it’s dead calm out. It floats too high, and the wind blows it all over the place. She needs one that’s scaled down to fit a kid…

Well, we have (or had…) this old one man… About 5 years ago, I “won” it in a Lanikai silent auction for about $120. I fixed it up and used it a few times, but it was 25′ long and weighed about 50# – not exactly a Ferrari. Needless to say, I never really used it much. It just sat around, sad and neglected. I was feeling kind of guilty about the condition it was in… As you can see below, Kaile sort of “claimed” it a while back. I figured that one day, I could give it to her. Well, it appears that that day is now. Now how to make the huge canoe suitable for a little paddler?…

The canoe is long, but it’s also very skinny. My idea was to cut about 10′ out of the middle, and glass the ends back together – leaving a short little “Keiki Kanu”. Because it’s so narrow, the scale works out really well. It took a LONG time to finally get the courage to take the plunge, but a few months ago I jumped in head first, skill saw in hand. I cut about 7′ off each end, then sliced off the deck. Then, I epoxied the ends together. This left me with a shell for the hull.

Once I had a shell for the hull, I needed a new deck. I made bulkheads out of 1″ foam, and then cut a deck out of 2″ foam. I epoxied the deck to the top of the bulkheads and sides of the canoe. There are holes for water to get out at the bottom of the bulkheads, and along the top of each side of the bulkheads. With the deck in place, I used a shureform to round it out and make a “canoe-like” shape. I left the center of the canoe open, to put in a foot well and recess for a seat. This was the “challenging” part of the project. I used the 1″ foam and shureform to shape pieces that I epoxied together to finish out the deck.

When I glued in the sides of the seat well, I made channels to run the rudder cable tubing through. I just took the cable and tubing from the old canoe and reused it…

Speaking of rudder, I needed to make a new rudder that fit the smaller canoe… I cut the shaft out of the old rudder, and shaped a new one out of 1/4″ divinicell. I coated it with epoxy and glass, sanded it, and painted it. Bam! New custom rudder.

What about the other end of the rudder cable, you might ask? Well, I had some carbon fiber cloth left over from the last steering blade I made, so I decided to make a sleek set of carbon pedals. Now, I just need to get some stainless hinges…

The next big task was creating something to attach the iakos to. The boys at Kamanu gave me some left over carbon tubing that they used for the Pueo. I cut some channels into the foam deck and glued in the tubing. When I glass the deck, I’ll glass over the tubing, connecting it to the rest of the deck in one solid piece.

Now that the hull was just about ready to glass, I needed to come up with an ama. I took some of the 1″ foam, and laminated 3 pieces together to make a 3″ wide by about 5′ long chunk of foam to shape the ama out of. I used the Pueo ama as a guide, and used a hack saw and shureform to rough out a mini ama. I think it came out pretty well. Now, I need to put in some carbon tubing to accept the iakos, and glass the whole thing…

Well, that’s it. A bunch of pieces waiting for assembly. I need to do some final sanding and a bunch of glassing… The last “parts” I need to acquire are the iakos and a seat. Getting closer! I’ll post some more once I get some more work done.

Aloha,
Eric