> According to the responses you all gave me, I look forward to
> buildind my kayak in hardshell in three or four parts to carry it
> in the plane for my trip in Greenland.

Designing and building a kayak that comes apart may not be necessary. Beofre you do, call your travel agent or the air line and ask them how large an object they can carry. They may be able to take a full-length kayak im one piece. If it is too large to ship as luggage, you might ask if there is an airfreight company that could handle it. Then you ship your boat on a cargo plane a few days ahead of your own flight. When you arrive in Greenland your boat should be waiting for you.

If you make the boat in 4 pieces you will probably have to pay extra for shipping. If you can estimate the size and weight of the pieces the airline can tell you how much.

Ever consider what you are going to do if only 3 of the 4 parts from your boat arrive intact? These will be odd sized pieces -- certainly not the shape of the usual suitcase -- and they may be damaged or lost.

If shipping costs seem high you might consider not shipping a kayak at all. Why not just rent one once you get to Greenland? A travel agent could probably get you the names and telephone numbers of several companies in Greenland that offer kayak tours. Contact these people and ask if they just rent the boats, or know of other firms that might. Of course, if you are going to rent a kayak there, you may not even want to build one.

> Can someone answer to the following
> questions: - Using fiberglass to build my kayak, it is a good idea?

A solid fiberglass kayak can be an excellent craft. Many people on this list build boats from thin wood and then cover these with fiberglass. This technique gives excellent boats, too. If you are building a boat that will be solid fiberglass you will have to build some form of mold. There is an excellent internet link that was given a few days ago under the title of Aerospace materials for kayak construction. I have copied it below. Just click on it and you will see how Ray Jardine builds his boats. He has opted to use carbon fiber and kevlar materials. The process is identical with making kayaks from fiberglass.

> - What manuel can I take to tell me how make a kayak in fiberglass?

I'll get back to you on this. I always figures that since I was going to have to make a mold (or plug) out of thin wood strips for a fiberglass boat, I might just as well make a strip-built boat in the first place, and be done with it. If you are interested in the process, Nick has some good links on this site explaining the process.

> - What kind of kayak is good to make for Greenland (single),

Well, there is a style of kayak called a Greenland style. This would probably be a good thing to look at first.

> so where
> can I get the plans of the good kayak?

There are several companies that sell the plans for the boats that they design, and there are companies that sell plans for boats that other people design. Some people design these things and give away the design. Nick has such free plans on this site. For a first time builder these plans might not have enough information. Two plans suppliers are ClarkCraft and Glen-L. Their URLs are: www.clarkcraft.com and www.glen-l.com respectively. Both sell their catalogs. You can find the current catalog prices and ordering information at their websites. They may also have books with information on fiberglass construction.

>(I heard that building a folding
> kayak is very expensive and the resutat is not always good).

Not necessarily. It really depends most on the skills of the builder. There are many ways to build a folding kayak, and people keep coming up with better and better ideas. A home-built folding kayak is almost always a skin-on-frame design, with a removeable skin. Once the skin is off, the frame can be disassembled, and later reassembled. The cost of materials for the frame and skin can be very reasonable when compared to building a kayak by other means. If you are considering a skin-on-frame kayak you might also look at a boat called a baidarka. Take a look at the Klepper page, (I think it is www.klepper.com) and you will see how a really nice folding kayak goes together. Basically you cut out frames from plywood, attach long skinny sticks to the sides of the frames, and cover this with a waterproof bag. The frames aren't very big, and the waterproof bag can roll up, so the only real problem is changing those long skinny sticks to short skinny strips. Once you figure out that, you can convert almost any skin-on-frame design into a folding kayak.

As it is, what you seem to need now is a plan for a fiberglass kayak that can come apart and be reassembled. I have never seen such a plan, so I can't tell you where to find one. Sorry. There was a note on this board a few days ago about a kayak that comes apart into 3 pieces. The bow and stern sections come off. The bow nests inside the stern, and then the stern slips inside the cockpit. When finished there is just a single parcel. This kind of design may be one you will want to try to find.

> Thank you very much for your help, sorry for asking so basic
> questions. There is so many information on the net that I don't know
> what to do sometime.

> Sebastien BAERD

Hope this helped Paul Jacobson