Tony lends a hand by assisting Kayak Boy #1 (Felix) to fair the deck.
And the Tasmanian pinot assists Tony.
One of the intentions with the construction of this kayak is to use local materials wherever possible. I've been fortunate in being able to source local timber and whale bone for the body of the kayak.
However there are some specific bits of additive kit that I have been unable to obtain locally ...
For example, I've been unable to find a locally made marine compass of high quality so I'm going to embed into the kayak's deck the compass shown here - it's a Suunto tactical marine compass made in Finland circa 1975. It's a beautifully robust compass of impeccable construction.
It's weathered condition will hopefully form a harmonious relationship with the wood of the deck.
Beneath the bonnet is a different creature ...
The second major component that I have chosen to source from over the distant horizon is this: It's a combined skeg rudder system from Kari-Tek.
Operated by hydraulic rams (rather than the wires found in all other operable rudder systems) this collection of components is absolutely beautifully engineered.
And, as far as I can establish, it is the only retractable skeg rudder system available for installing along the keel line of a kayak.
(It also costs a small fortune.)
This is the retractable blade when fully deployed and operable as a rudder.
When partially deployed the blade serves as a skeg.
I think that it's a great piece of design because it locates the skeg / rudder in a more effective position along the hull than the typical tail-end position which loses traction in larger seas. In this sense it has the benefits of the rudder used in racing skis. But it is better than that mechanism as it can be fully retracted. Presumably this design will find its way into racing skis before long.
The detraction from this design, however, is that the system's housing invades the internal territory of the kayak's available expedition storage space. Though, as it is a relatively slim device, I am hoping that the loss of space will be minor.
This is the toe-operated hydraulic steering mechanism.
The white acrylic "beam" is mounted to the underside of the deck and allows flexibility with the positioning of the toe plate along its length.
And this is the slider that hydraulically operates the raising and lowering of the blade.
(For the uninitiated, all of the tubes will be housed beneath the deck.) The slider box will be mounted into the deck's surface. A small piece of whale bone will cover the sliding block.
When I began this journey to make a kayak I had many aims. One of the expressed ones was to make a vessel that had its principle elements sourced exclusively from indigenous / local sources. Over this last summer I have read David Malouf's "A Spirit of Play" - which was delivered by the author in the Boyer Lectures - and refined my approach to local identity and the specifics of place.
Here is an important excerpt that has some relevance to me and my kayak:
They (Governor Phillip and members of the First Fleet) had come here expecting to find natives. They had an impeccable document that outlined how they should deal with them. They knew, either from previous experience or from their reading in Montaigne and Shakespeare and Rousseau, and from Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe', what a native might be. And from Cook and Banks what these natives might be. But Bennelong was not expecting this meeting. He had no preparation for it but his own capacity to observe, open his imagination, and respond.
What he made of Phillip, the room he made in his world for Phillip's authority and for Phillip's house as a 'sacred site' (he insisted, for example, that his daughter be born in its grounds) speaks for an act of accommodation, of inclusiveness, that is an example to each one of us, and, considering all that followed, a shame to each one of us as well. But Bennelong, however weak he may have been in physical power, had behind him the strength of a culture that in being old had developed, in its long view of things, an extraordinary capacity to accept and adapt to change. It is in terms of that long view that what we have made here will be judged, and in the shaping of a collective consciousness, mixed but truly native, Bennelong's inclusive view, his imaginative leap, may turn out to have been the most important element in that first and fateful meeting of two worlds.
"mixed but truly native" - seems like a great definition of a Tasmanian pinot.
(And a sound approach towards constructing a special kayak)
