Folding Kayaks Forum

I decided to build my own pair of outriggers.

Cost will be negligible, while the ready-made I saw cost a fortune on the web.

They will be skin-on-frame, just like the Yostwerks kayaks designs I built, only smaller and with a plywood deck.

Wish me luck !

first frames just cut. 3 for each outrigger.

Total length of each: 1.20 m
Beam: 0.20 m

I'm advancing slowly. If I succeed, it will be while using the crappiest Chinese, non-marine, void-filled, surface-peeling, un-straight plywood ever.

I asked a little nearby workshop making stainless steel stair rails to copy some J-clamps for me. As they refused to do less than 4, I have 4 brand new clamps now. See the Klepper above and the copy below.

If I can, I'll replace the butterfly nut with something a bit more elaborate later.

Tasty piece of work this. What's the reason for the plywood deck, will it carry some sort of load?

That was the idea at the beginning, but since this plywood is awful, I will use it only during the construction and then add a wood beam as a "deck" to be able to attach the outriggers arms to something

One frame is done. Since the picture was taken, I added a big pine beam on the deck, Should be strong enough

Your outrigger is very interesting, starting to look like a model boat, fit out the deck as a launch and you will have lots of interest, some of my models are larger than your outrigger, here,s a Fairmile B as used during ww2 in the St Lawrence, Canada, about 1.5 m long

Funny, that's exactly what I thought when I removed the hull from the strongback: "if it doesn't work as an outrigger, I'll convert one to an RC sailer..."

The skin on frame hull will look weird though.

Here it is with the deck beam.



I started the second one and plan to use bolts to connect them to the wooden arms.

This week-end, I shaped a bit the arms (one was quite warped), and drilled 6 holes as follows:

2 holes for the bolts to hold one outrigger (the second one is not finished yet), 2 holes for the J-clamps to hold the arms on top of the coaming and once the Klepper frame is assembled and the arms in position, 2 holes for the bolts to keep the arms secured against each other.

It was the first time for me assembling the kayak without its hull, and I must say it's much less hassle and much faster like this. I wonder why I bothered with the skin up to now.

Now, you can see a skeleton outrigger on a skeleton kayak.

Almost as pretty as a Balogh, isn't it ?

In truth, this is not the final cover. I used a waste bag so I could play with spray foam (plus real pieces of blue foam in it) to fill the frame to make the pontoon unsinkable.

Then I will rasp the foam bulges that will appear everywhere (it is still growing at the moment) before putting the real covering.

This is an improvement on the method we used to fill the bow and stern of a Sea Tour 15, where the foam effectively changed the shape of the finished hull !!

Since your amas have rigid frame and are not inflatable, you might as well use a rigid skin on them (which is usually a marine-grade plywood treated with epoxy). Check CLC website http://www.clcboats.com/shop/boats/sailboats/CLC-SAILRIG.html (they sell both kits and plans for stitch-and-glue boats and amas). The more smooth and rigid is ama, the more hydrodynamical.

Hello Alm,

I'm sure these amas are much better than the ones I'm building but:
-clc refuses to ship epoxy overseas,
-the price of the kit is 950 USD without shipping,
-the final product is really large and must be a bit cumbersome to carry.

In Beijing, I tried to source marine plywood (China produces a lot of it) but the factories are closer to Shanghai. I could not find any here and the guys I contacted by email did not want to ship a smaller quantity than a pallet (which was 150 sheets of 6mm plywood if I remember well).

For me, after building 3 Skin On Frame kayaks, I thought building 2 outriggers with similar techniques would be easy and cheap. I must have spent around 37 USD so far and I have lots of left over PVC from previous projects.

Here are photo,s of the HD pontoons available from "Spring Creek" and "sail Boats To Go", the vertical rod allows the pontoon to be set at different heights, i have mine set a few inches above the water when my Aerius 2 is at rest, with this system it is possible to put 2 pontoons on each side if wanted, again they can be set at different heights. I have no idea if this is a good thing to do adding extra drag never is. The length is advertised i think as 42 inches, not much bigger than yours, but i would like them longer.