Last Tuesday was the maiden launch of my new Cormorant 16. Wind and wave conditions were pretty benign and I’m not an experienced enough kayaker to give a good detailed review of a boat’s handling anyway, so I’ll just say I was very pleased with the ride. The Cormorant tracks very well, turns easily, and didn’t seem too affected by the 5mpg onshore winds, ½ foot wind waves, or larger boat wakes.

The boat was not completely finished so you’ll notice no deck fittings or hatches. The epoxy had not yet been sanded so no varnish at this point. Since then I’ve cut a recessed rear hatch, and completed the sanding of deck and hull. Just need a few coats of varnish, and deck fittings to finish her off.

Building notes:

Because I’m not a camper, I wanted a low-volume boat for day use so I trimmed about ¾ inch off the shears. This narrowed the beam a bit, but I narrowed it a little more by making the shallow V hull a little less shallow. The beam is 21 ½, about one inch narrower then specs. Overall length came to about 16 feet 2 inches. I used the cambered rather than chined deck because that’s what I’m more comfortable with having built one CLC 16LT for my wife earlier this year.

The boat was a pleasure to build - the offsets that Grant Goltz published (and so generously gives away) on his website are very accurate and the result is one beautiful hull design - very sleek, with nice, slightly upswept bow and stern.

As many contributers here have mentioned, one’s second boat often turns out significantly lighter than the first. This was true in my case as the Cormorant came in at about 37 pounds - 5 pounds lighter than the CLC 16LT we built. There are two coats of epoxy on the deck, 6 ounce ‘glass in the cockpit and on the hull. I used 4mm okoume for everything except the coaming which is 6mm meranti.

There are bulkheads fore and aft, but no front hatch. Instead I put a 6 inch Beckson deck plate in the front bulkhead for occasional venting, and possibly some storage of small items.

The cambered deck is screwed and glued on. The compound camber in the front where the bow sweeps up created a very slight concavity but still looks very nice - any more upsweep would be difficult without using some other method of deck construction (stripping or multi-chined).

All in all I’m very pleased with the results and can highly recommend this boat to anyone. While I’m certainly not qualified to comment on the technical merits of the design, I can emphatically say that it’s one of the most beautiful hard-chined hulls I’ve seen - whether commercial fiberglass design or S&G. My thanks to Grant Goltz of Squeedunk kayaks for designing a gorgeous boat and making the plans available to the kayak building community.

Peter