Ken, I'm glad to hear that someone else has a Shearwater Baidarka in progress.

Two of us are now at the varnishing stage on this design. We deviated from Eric's instructions markedly.

We both have bulkhead footrests, so our final plywood bulkheads are in custom positions, relative to the construction 'bulkhead' forms which were in MDF. I also have a third (day-hatch) bulkhead and a Nairn (similar to Beckson) pry-out 8" day-hatch, just behind the cockpit.

With the Baidarka, the contortions in the hull really require you to stitch (or strap) the deck in place while the hull fillets cure. If you don't, then you will end up having to significantly trim both the deck and hull to get them to fit. The temporary bulkheads cannot define the spread of the sheer near the bow and stern without the deck in place and no amount of force will work after the fillets are set.

We decided to attach deck and hull with sheer clamps, thickened epoxy and filament tape. We have no stitch holes at the sheer. Once the sheer clamps are set in place, you can jam spreaders (we used 1" by 2" radiata pine cut to length) in between the sheer clamps. This allows the deck to just sit on the sheer clamps without needing much clamping force. We chamfered the deck and hull, so that the sheer clamp, deck and hull fit together very closely. It makes a neat and hopefully strong joint.

I believe that you shouldn't cut the hatches out until you have glassed the deck both sides (we used 4 ounce cloth both sides, not tape). This way, your hatches will retain the same shape as the deck. Both my friend and I have had to work out methods to contort the finished hatch covers back to fit the profile of the deck, because we cut the hatches out too early. She used carefully shaped plywood webs and I have regained the deck shape by glassing the hatches back to the deck and cutting them out again! Ugh, what a mess!

We didn't cut cockpits until after the decks were on, but before the outside layer of glass. I put in an insert (similar to the prototype Baidarka) so that I could drop the overall height of the coaming nearly 2" and have a standard whitewater keyhole cockpit shape and fit. My friend cut hers to a smaller sized "ocean cockpit" size (her Baidarka is a 6% reduction of the standard, with a modified bow - 16'6" by 19.75" to suit her 100 lb size).

Sorry Ken, but with this complex design there is no "easy way". The up-side is that it's a fantastic design and should be an excellent rough water performer.

There is a brief article and some photos at the website below.

Feel free to ask any questions.

Andrew

: Sorry to weasel in on Tom's thread but while we're on the topic I may as well
: ask a question I would have been asking in a few days anyway. When tacking
: the deck on a multipanel deck what is the method of attack? Do you stitch
: the hull and deck together, fair the deck, then cut out the hatches to
: give you access to do your tacking? Another source of difficulty is that
: the Shearwater Baidarka that I am building has front and rear bulkheads as
: well as two temporary bulkheads to hold the shape of the boat while
: assembling. These will further restrict access to the bow and stern. Is
: there an easy way to do this?

: Looking for the easy way out...

: Ken