Wood Duckling

Product Description

The Wood Duckling is a stylish child's kayak with excellent performance to stop them getting bored and enough capacity to get years of use through several big growth spurts. Construction is quick and easy for a junior boatbuilder, so they won't outgrow it before it is finished.

Designer Eric Schade adapted his madly popular Wood Duck range to create the Wood Duckling.

The Wood Duckling's small size gives up nothing in sophistication or good looks. This isn't a kayak for sprinting, but the Wood Duckling will coast alongside the adult Wood Ducks with little effort. It's got plenty of stability and the dry, water-shedding deck will keep them paddling well into the Autumn. Just like the grown-up kayaks, there is a proper watertight storage hatch to hide a change of clothes, snacks, action figures, beach toys or even their fair share of overnight gear.

The Wood Duckling will handle kids from 2½ to 7 st. We tested the boat to 220 lb (nearly 16 st), at which point the deck was awash but the little boat was still stable and afloat (if not ideal). We're confident you'll get a lot of growing room out of your Duckling!

Weighing only 22 lb completed and rigged, this is a kayak that the little ones can manage on the beach, too. It'll fit inside the larger minivans, with the bow just poking between the front seats.

Construction is identical to the larger Wood Ducks. With some help, your junior boatbuilder will assemble the panels using computer-cut puzzle joints in the kit. The computer has already drilled the holes for all of the copper wire ties that hold the hull panels together temporarily. You'll glue the hull parts together with epoxy, then remove the wires. Epoxy fillets and layers of fibreglass fabric inside and out give you a very tough boat. You can – and at some point probably will – drop the boat on hard ground without doing any harm. A final finish of varnish brings up a lovely deep gloss on the Okoume hull and the contrasting Sapele deck.

A couple of build logs on our forum show a Wood Duck 12 being built and even a pair of Wood Ducks built simultaneously.

This is a quick boat to build from a kit: set aside about 50 hours to do a creditable job of it. This is a perfect first-time boatbuilding project for kids or their parents.

Unlike our other boats, the Wood Ducks and Wood Duckling have no forward bulkhead, therefore use of buoyancy bags is strongly recommended.

The kit contains:

• Pre-cut wooden panels with pre-cut joints and pre-drilled tie holes
• Epoxy resin and activator
• Epoxy fillers
• Copper ties
• Woven glass fabric
• Fabric covered foam seat and backband
• Construction manual
• Free technical support from a competent builder

What else do I need?

Plans and manual (not required by kit purchasers)

These plans and manual contain sufficient information on the cutting of the panels to make it possible to build the boat from scratch rather than a kit. The plans include full size drawings.

Study manual

This is intended for pre-build study or to help with the decision to purchase. This is the comprehensive manual that accompanies the kit; reading it will help you decide whether or not you can build the boat. It describes all of the techniques that will be used during the build and also a step by step guide to construction. It contains a photograph or diagram of every step.

If, later, you decide to purchase the kit the cost of this will be deducted from the kit price.

The manual does not contain the cutting instructions so it is not possible to build the boat from scratch using only this.

PDF study plans

These study plans are intended to give you an overview of the construction of the boat. They are in PDF format that can be viewed using Adobe Reader. There are two pages and they measure 279 × 216 mm (11″ × 8½″). They can be printed for carrying around.

After credit card authorisation the plans will be sent to the email address put on the order form.

When you have studied the plans, your next step might be to order the printed instruction manual, which will walk you through the project step-by-step.

Wood

This option contains the solid wood and plywood components pre-cut to the correct size with pre-cut joints, plus the construction manual. It does not contain the plans (these are not required because the wood is pre-cut), any of the epoxy to glue and coat the boat, the fabric or tape nor any of the hardware or rigging.

Compare this kayak with others.