If you'll remember last fall, my soon-to-be 5 year old daughter needed a new kayak. She outgrew the performance of her old "Sharkbait" 8-footer. So I gave her four different designs to choose from: an East Greenlander, an Aleutian, a "modern" plumb nose design and the SEA-12 (the 15 is our British inspired, swede-form, rough water boat). She picked the SEA-12 and I built it over the winter. She named it "The Pink Jaguar." Weather prolonged the launching date but she finally paddled her new kayak last weekend... with her new pink CF GP of course.

It's a fuselage-style skin-on-frame that's 12 feet long and 16 inches wide. I skinned it using Bill Hamm's method with a twist or two: The hull is skinned with Dacron and 3.2 oz fiberglass covered with 3 layers of white graphite. The deck is Dacron laminated with Wally-world cotton/polyester and a few coats of Epifanes Rapidclear varnish. She picked the fabric for the deck all by herself. The coaming is wood-stripped out of basswood and walnut, fiberglassed and is actually recessed like on the strip version. The recess is more apparent from other angles.

She was really cautious getting in it initially but soon settled right in. Her balance was amazing. We paddled about a 1/2 mile to a beach. She couldn't paddle the entire distance herself so Mom gave her a tow (I was towing my 3 year old in her "Pink Pearl."). The wind picked up at one point and kicked up some 6" waves which she handled with aplomb. People at the pond kept asking if was a fiberglass boat. Well... kinda! Also, with nothing around it for scale, it looks like an adult could jump right in the cockpit. It was fun taking it out.

I sized it so she should be able use her "Pink Jaguar" for at least 5 or 6 years.

Lena was amazing and made me really proud. :D