Woody,

I also greatly appretiate the surveyors of native kayaks. The Putz Walrus is taken off a Inuit kayak from SW Greenland by Norman Skene in 1921, drawings done by Howard Chappelle. Skene modified the construction in 1923, but kept the basic shape and performance. Putz republished the plans with more modifications in 1990.

The kayak that I am making is modeled after the original SW Greenland kayak, but made to fit my non-Inuit build. The original had a 19-1/4" beam, mine is up to 20-1/2". The construction of mine uses Putz's methods, but I have tried to make some minor improvements. Time will tell if they are really improvements.

Mike

: I too like dealing with George Dyson. Mr.Dyson deserves credit for developing
: the the synthetic skin + coating combo's that many use. But there are
: other Non-Inuit that pre-date Dyson in promoting Alaskan designs which I'm
: sure George would agree with. Howard Chappelle is the first that I know of
: followed by John Heath and Eugene Arima who started researching and
: publishing material for Kayak replicators of the various Canadian kayaks
: followed by David Zimmerly and John Brand. Thankfully the various Inuit
: people who continued kayak building into the 1900's made it possible to
: learn first hand how the boats were built and skinned.