Our Boats

At Archipelago we have a core fleet of boats that we build - all of our public courses are based around these craft. These are boats we know deeply, and we know they work well to build on our courses but also function extremely well. We don’t believe in cutting any corners: just because we build boats fast and with novices, we still build really good and useful boats. All of our boats use a combination of pre-cut plywood parts and solid timber shaped and fitted over the course. The techniques we use are common, but we think we’ve really honed our approach over the years to get the best possible boats even with total novices. We don’t skimp on quality either, all plywood parts are made from Robbins Elite ply, the best marine ply you can find in the UK, all solid timber is high quality Douglas Fir and it’s all held together with West System Epoxy. Each boat is different and the techniques involved change slightly. To find our more about each boat read below.

Shrike Sea Kayak

Length - 5.3 meters

Beam - 540 mm

Weight - About 16kg

We build the CNC Shrike Kayak, a wonderful design to open source plans - very in keeping with our general outlook of encouraging people to participate in craft. Built in the ‘stitch and glue’ style it’s easy to pull together, albeit with quite a few tips and tricks to make it all come together. We’ve worked up a computer cut kit of the boat and build jigs so that we can get everything built in time.

The boat is based on traditional ‘qajaqs’ from the Disko Bay area of West Greenland. The Shrike hull lines are very similar to a kayak collected in 1927/8 from that region and now at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. These classic and beautiful lines, the result of centuries of development, produce a hull that is manoeuvrable, and suited to rough water. The sharp bow lines will keep you on your toes when surfing. The long water line allows comfortable high speeds while touring, yet the rocker and chine lines create a manoeuvrable shape that will delight while rock hopping.

It’s a great fun boat to paddle, it feels a little tender at first but once you are used to it and enjoy leaning into the curves they are fast and responsive like few other craft. And it really is a beautiful thing, we get admiring glances everywhere we go (for the boat we’re sure). We’re rarely out of our show boat - even in bad weather we’re out having fun on the water!

For lighter paddlers we can build the boat at 90% size - this reduces the boat in every direction and will make it fit much better.

As standard we build the boats with three accessible watertight compartments: one under the foredeck accessed through a hatch at your feet, one right behind the paddler for keeping your sandwiches in, and a larger aft compartment. We use screw on hatches for all of these openings. These are cheap, readily available and we think they are great. We have in the past offered an upgrade to Kajaksport hatches, but we tend to find there is little advantage to the extra complexity and cost. If you would really prefer Kajaksport hatches, please let us know when booking and we can arrange it for an additional fee.

To find out more see https://cnckayaks.com/shrike/

Peterborough Canoe

Length - 4.7 Meters

Beam - 830 mm

Weight - About 27kg

We love the wee Peterborough, it’s one of the smaller boats we make but maybe the most bonnie? Designed by Paul Selway and made from a kit developed by Alec Jordan, it’s a 5 plank a side open canoe that ideally suits a solo paddler or two smaller people for an afternoon. Paul say of the design “The name ‘Peterborough’ was often used to describe any open Canadian type canoe but more especially those with a lightly rockered hull which had a moderate beam and some tumblehome. Our example has relatively narrow waterlines fore and aft to make her quick to paddle and a stable shallow veed bottom amidships with tumblehome to make her stable with a narrow beam.” The boat has a really upswept sheer line, which we think looks great.

Like all of our boats, they are stitch and glue built with precut plywood planks sewn together with cable ties and then all the joins covered in epoxy and fibreglass cloth inside and a full layer of fibreglass cloth outside. This method makes the boat light yet very tough and durable. We don’t encourage it, but they can handle some abuse! The transparent fibreglass cloth also leaves the beauty of plywood on show - just begging to be varnished!

These boats come with 2 ash seats that we order in and we tend to fit a single carrying yoke centrally. Though any and all adaptions of how you want to fit out the boat are on the cards, so we’re happy to chat through what you’d like to do.

Prospector 17 Canoe

Length - 5.2 Meters

Beam - 900 mm

Weight - About 43kg

In 2021 we added a larger canoe to our courses - these larger boats have much more carrying capacity and durability. Despite being only 500mm longer than the Peterborough, this is a lot more boat. If you expect to be going out with 2 adults with camping gear this is the boat for you. The original Prospectors were originally designed in Canada and known as the "workhorse of the North". They had to have a good carrying capacity for all of the Prospector's gear and they had to work well through white water and wilderness. The bow and stern are relatively full and she has good freeboard amidships to keep her crew dry. The well rockered keel line makes her highly manoeuvrable and the tumblehome in her topsides makes her both stable and easy to paddle.

As the build style is the same with both canoes, we can build them side by side without it being too difficult. It’s worth saying though that this boat is a little bit more work, still very manageable but there is just a bit more boat to work on so it can mean an extra 30mins or so each day.

These boats come with 3 ash seats that we order in to suit, and we tend to fit 2 thwarts which you make as part of the course.