John Kumiski with his Cape Falcon canoe on a Central Florida stream.
September 10, 2024
By John Kumiski
After visiting the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ontario, I felt compelled to build a canoe. The museum was magnificent! Hundreds of exquisite hand-crafted boats—birchbark canoes, dugouts, strip canoes, skin-on-frame boats, more. The ghosts of the builders of those boats filled that hall, all whispering to me: “John! Build a boat!” It was the nicest I'd ever been haunted.
After returning home, I started doing research. Too big. Too heavy. Too complicated. Too expensive. I found Brian Schulz’s Cape Falcon Kayaks site (capefalconkayaks.com ). There it is! My new canoe!
Last October, I bought plans for a skin-on-frame canoe and the instructional video course for $150. Now there were lots of tools and materials to buy. Christmas was coming.
Santa was good, providing quite a few needed tools. I started looking for wood, and bought the rest of the necessary tools. Some of the wood proved hard to find, and was more expensive than I had anticipated. Western cedar from the Pacific northwest, and white oak from Wisconsin, were supplemented with local cypress and ash.
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I (with some help) started cutting, and drilling, and gluing, and sanding, and lashing. A wave of emotion swept through me after I put a spreader between the gunwales, then pinched both the ends together. A canoe shape! Holy cow!
After cutting, I steamed and bent the oak to make the ribs. They fitted into mortises in the gunwales. Then cedar strips, the stringers, were lashed to the ribs to finish the frame. That frame looked awesome, and only weighed about 20 pounds.
White oak ribs and cedar stringers were skinned with ballistic nylon. All through the frame-building process, whenever there were questions or problems, I would text Brian Schulz. His support and encouragement were incredible. All customer service should be this good.
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The next step was to skin the boat. Brian recommends using 840 X-TRA Tuff Ballistic Nylon. That’s right—my boat is skinned with nylon. Putting the nylon over the frame took an entire morning. After letting it sit for a couple days, over that nylon went four coats of two-part urethane coating. All this was purchased as a kit from the Skin Boat Store (skinboats.org ).
The seating arrangement and flotation (left). The frame, prior to skinning (right) After allowing the urethane to dry for a couple days, I was hot to take the canoe for a water test. Not so fast, Buckaroo! Flotation needed to be installed. I went high-tech, using four pool noodles lashed to the frame, two on each side. Eye straps were attached to the bow and stern stems, and a 12-foot-long painter was tied to each. My kayak seat clips to the center rib perfectly. I got a foam sleeping pad, and a floatation cushion, and a double-bladed paddle, and a single-bladed paddle, and my wife, and everything went to the local pond.
I must have looked ridiculous paddling that canoe around the pond, grinning like the Cheshire Cat the entire time. The boat didn't roll right over, it paddled as well as any boat I’ve ever paddled. I could pick it up with one hand (finished weight: a whopping 26 pounds), and I made it! Incredible!
The author fly-fishing from the canoe. This canoe is completely customizable within certain parameters, about 12 to 17 feet. You can build a set of them that nest into each other like those famous Russian dolls. You can catamaran them together. You can add a sailing rig. I have every intention of doing that. The mast step is already installed in my boat.
It’s still a new toy, but building this canoe was an extraordinary learning experience. I have only the finest things to say about Brian Schulz and his course. It helped me successfully complete one of the finest projects I’ve ever done. And you could do it, too!
This article was featured in the August-September 2024 issue of Florida Sportsman. Click to subscribe.
