Now that a Seaflea was built for Filip, another kayak for Marnix had to be build as well. And so before the holidays I build another kayak in a similar building fashion as the Seaflea, designed by Dick van Zanten, the "Wave Piercer".
And this kayak is not only suitable for Marnix to paddle, but it is also very suitably designed as a trainingkayak for Greenland style rolling.
Below a brief photoimpression of this kayak.

This is a brief note about our leaking hatches. In our latest SOF's we (Dick & Tom) build in hatches and bulkheads. We used a stitching method to attach the hatches to the skin and used a bedding compound to create a watertight seal. This has worked for a long time but after a year or so of opening and closing the hatches and the flex of the skin, the seal between the beddiing compound and the plastic of the hatches let loose and the hatches started leaking. Funny coincidence is that it happened to both our kayaks on the second daytrip of this year.

So what next. Simple really, remove the hatches and re-attach them, this time using polyethyleen (PE) support ring  underneath the skin and attach them using screws. Of course there is a bedding compound in between the hatchring and the skin to create a watertight seal. So if the skin and hatch move up and down now, the PE support ring also moves up and down, which prevents creating tension on the bedding compound.

While paddling our first boats, Tom and I discovered that they didn't precisely match the way we wanted to use them. Our first boats were built as described in the books by Morris/Cunningham for Tom's Greenlander and by Wolfgang Brinck for my baidarka. The resulting boats were relatively high-volume and had high back decks. In my baidarka it was very difficult to sit with legs spread against the gunwales because of the peaked deck beams. And even though the paddling characteristics of the boats were fine what we wanted were lighter, lower-volume boats for daytrips equipped with bulkheads and hatches both aft and front and low aft decks for easy layback rolls. Luggage space should be no more than necessary for a weekend at most. There also was a wish for higher cruising speed if possible.