: Thank You! -to all the regulars who contribute to this forum, as a lurker for
: a few months I have learned soo much!

: Now, my wonderful wife is working abroad until may, we live in a 900sq ft apt
: and I have promised not to turn the living room into a boat shed while she
: is away (I sail as well as sea kayak, and my gear seem to take a lot of
: room).

: No promises have been made regarding the kitchen, which will need renovating
: pretty soon anyway. My question is: can our small kitchen be used to build
: a S&G kayak during the winter months?

: The kitchen is sort of hour-glass shaped, 19'4'' long and only 3'5'' at the
: narrowest section but 5'8'' at the widest.

: I didnt manage to link a plan of the kitchen but it could be mailed.

: Im 5'7'' 145pounds and do max 4-5 day trips, looking to build a Merganser16
: or Chesapeake 16Lt. Have some fiberglass experience from years of dinghy
: racing...

: Will the kitchen be too cramped? (i.e. should I try to renegotiate on the
: living room???)

: Best Regards
: Niklas
: ;-)

No doubt you have given the question of how you exit with the boat some thought. That has to be your first consideration. Then it becomes a question of how much inconvenience you are prepared to put up with. You won't have much room left for baking cakes (or making breakfast). Another consideration is the dust you will get over everthing when you do your sanding. If you can some how cordon off the kitchener in order to limited the dust just to that room will help.

Many of the books you can get on this subject or posts on this board which have been done suggest you should have several feet of clearance around the boat in order to be able to work on it properly. That is for convenience not for "must have". My first boat was a Pygmy Osprey double kit. The boat is 20 feet long and has a beam of 30 inches. I built it in the basement in two rooms connected by a doorway that was 30 inches wide. There was a window directly in line with the length of the boat so that is how it exited. Every time I wanted to work on the front of the boat I had to crawl underneath it. To exit the basement, the boat of course had to be tilted sideways. The available space in the door way was only about 3 or 4 inches each side (because the boat was 30 inches only at its widest point).

Another consideration is ongoing storage while building. If you are building a S&G where do you put the panels that have not been assembled as part of the boat yet. Remember they are 17 feet long. Then you have to think of where the hull will go when you are working on the deck and vice versa. These two pieces are separate for part of the time during construction. My solution was to hang the hull from the ceiling when I worked on the deck and then reverse the process when I worked on the hull.

You will also need a small "assembly areas" beside the boat where you do things like mixing your epoxy, cutting out the bulk heads or working on the coaming pieces.

So I can personally attest to the fact that you can build a boat in limited space but it is inconvenient and does take longer.

By the way, after completing the Osprey I built a stripper in the same space. That is another problem you have to consider. This hobby is addictive. You can't stop after one boat. My next project is a skin on frame.

Good luck and enjoy the process