19'-6" COLVOS PASSAGE
Expedition Double Kayak

COLVOS PASSAGE was designed for a tall friend with big feet who wanted a boat for his teenage children to grow up camping with. A mile from his home, Colvos Passage runs 20 miles between Vashon Island and the Kitsap Peninsula in Puget Sound. Paddling there is great exercise since the winds and tidal flow never seem to stop.

She has many of the features of the best multi-chine kit kayaks plus a true round bilge without the hassle of building a strip planked bilge or wiring a lot of pieces together. She has high volume, plenty of strength, and good stability for packing the weight and paddling safely in rough waters. She also has very low drag for ease of long distance paddling. If you are handy with tools, familiar with thin plywood, epoxy and fiberglass sheathing,

patient, measure twice and cut once, the entire boat can be built and outfitted, including a rudder kit for under 800 dollars. She is built on a form and the plans provide full size molds to transfer with pins or cut out and trace. Her keel is standard stitch-and-glue construction. Her "scrunch-and -glue" round bilges are made by scoring the plywood partway through, forming them with inexpensive plastic pipe sections and gluing them together with epoxy and tape in your home-made mold. This 20' boat can be built from 4 sheets of 4 mm ocoume plywood (4' by 8'); or, if you prefer a richer brown deck, from two sheets each of 4 mm ocoume (5' by 10') and 3 mm sapele (4' by 8'). The plans give panel layouts and

Paddling Resistance in Pounds

The construction strongback with molds aligned.

20' loa, 29-1/2" beam, 11" at side
680 lb max displacement

the illustrated construction guide walks you through the steps.

After the bottom and side planks have been taped and glued together, the mold is progressively removed, the joints are filled and the ends taped and epoxied together.

flotation, adjustable foot braces, varnish or paint. You can customize hatches, backrests, seats and deck layout. Plans give a recommend-ed arrangement and construction details, including how to build tight flush hatches that maintain the deck grain pattern intact Study plans (w/o molds) are $5. The full set of plans & guide $95.

Inside pipe mold just removed from taped and epoxied bilge seam