Hi Mike,

Have you paddled a Current Designs Caribou? It is a similar boat, but
it is slightly deeper in the cockpit. The hatches are recessed, unlike
the VCP on the Hawk, and the lines look cleaner.

http://www.cdkayak.com/kayaks/comps/caribous.asp

Changing the cockpit coaming on a boat is a royal pain. You need to
grind it out, build a new coaming (mold and all), and find a way to
bond it in. In that you are asking how to do it, I'm going to suggest
you avoid it (if you had the skill to do it, you would not need to
ask). You might contact a local boat repair shop to see if they will
do it for you, but expect to pay at least $500 and probably a lot
more. It is not an easy or fun job, and fiberglass is one of those
things that if you screw up, you have to grind it back out and start
over.

Commercially avaliable rims can be obtained from the manufacturers,
but they are designed for specific boats and will require modifying
the shape of your deck to accomidate the shape of the coaming. It
would be easier to tool your own rim to your existing deck shape than
to try and reform the deck to the coamings shape. By building your own
mold, you can also build in the thighbraces at the right location and
angle.

Unless you feel this is the one and only boat for you, it is not worth
the effort. There are better boats out there, such as the Caribou,
that won't require the work.

Eric

Mike,

Chesapeake Light Craft now sells an Arctic Hawk kit. You could make it to
whatever specs you want.

I imagine you could get them to sell you a coaming if that is all you wanted,
but it would be wood.

Brian Blankinship

(Blankibr) wrote in
:

Mike,

Chesapeake Light Craft now sells an Arctic Hawk kit. You could make it
to whatever specs you want.

I imagine you could get them to sell you a coaming if that is all you
wanted, but it would be wood.

I'm not so sure about that. The Arctic Hawk kit is only available as a kit.
Mark Rogers (the designer) licensed the design to CLC but I heard that he
only wanted it available as a kit, and not sold as plans. The cockpit for
the CLC version might not even fit the cockpit for a glass version. The
Superior Kayaks wood version is not identical to the glass version. The
glass version is a half inch shorter and narrower.

Let me start by saying I'm not a wooden boat builder.

I have seen lots of people modify CLC's kits. I don't see why you couldn't
also modify the Hawk kit.


Mike,

Chesapeake Light Craft now sells an Arctic Hawk kit. You could make it
to whatever specs you want.

I imagine you could get them to sell you a coaming if that is all you
wanted, but it would be wood.

I'm not so sure about that. The Arctic Hawk kit is only available as a kit.
Mark Rogers (the designer) licensed the design to CLC but I heard that he
only wanted it available as a kit, and not sold as plans. The cockpit for
the CLC version might not even fit the cockpit for a glass version. The
Superior Kayaks wood version is not identical to the glass version. The
glass version is a half inch shorter and narrower.

(Blankibr) wrote in
:

Let me start by saying I'm not a wooden boat builder.

I have seen lots of people modify CLC's kits. I don't see why you
couldn't also modify the Hawk kit.

One could, however since it is a kit all the parts a pre-cut which means
that the only option is to cut them smaller than what you get in the kit. I
suppose one could scarf existing panels to make them larger but that would
require a significant amount of work.

In any case, we were talking about modifying the cockpit on a completed
composite version using the cockpit from a CLC kit. It would likely be just
as easy to trace the pattern of a larger cockpit from some other boat onto
butcher block paper then cut out a cockpit rim from that. There are also a
couple of sites out there which describe how to build a glass or carbon
fiber cockpit rim.

(Eric Nyre) wrote in
om:

Hi Mike,

Have you paddled a Current Designs Caribou? It is a similar boat, but
it is slightly deeper in the cockpit. The hatches are recessed, unlike
the VCP on the Hawk, and the lines look cleaner.

I've paddled both the Caribou and an Arctic Hawk and didn't find them that
similar. I thought the Hawk tracked better and was faster, while the Caribou
was more manoeverable. The deck on the Caribou is higher, providing more
volume for the knees, but by traditional west Greenland standards even the
Arctic Hawk is high volume.

The last time I paddled a Caribou it felt much bigger than I remembered,
probably because for the last couple of years I've been paddling a much
lower volume boat
(http://caddis.mannlib.cornell.edu/pa.../finished.html)

http://www.cdkayak.com/kayaks/comps/caribous.asp
Unless you feel this is the one and only boat for you, it is not worth
the effort. There are better boats out there, such as the Caribou,
that won't require the work.

The Caribou is better than an Arctic Hawk? That's highly subjective.

John Fereira wrote in message ...

The Caribou is better than an Arctic Hawk? That's highly subjective.

Hi John,

Pleasure to meet you.

My statements were in the context of Mike's origional post, in which
he was trying to find another Greenland boat that would be larger than
an Artic Hawk.

My statement:

"There are better boats out there, such as the Caribou,
that won't require the work"

Was specifically in reference to the physical fit of the kayak. There
are boats, such as the Caribou, which will fit him better if the Artic
Hawk is too small.

I'm sorry that I did not spell out every little detail, I assumed it
would have been covered in the context of my reply to Mikes post
(which had nothing to do with handling, if you read it). Most paddlers
know that any general claim of one boat being universally better than
another are nonsense, and I did not realize someone would
misinterperate my post in that way.

Eric

(Eric Nyre) wrote in
om:

John Fereira wrote in message
...

The Caribou is better than an Arctic Hawk? That's highly subjective.

Hi John,

Pleasure to meet you.

My statements were in the context of Mike's origional post, in which
he was trying to find another Greenland boat that would be larger than
an Artic Hawk.

My statement:

"There are better boats out there, such as the Caribou,
that won't require the work"

Was specifically in reference to the physical fit of the kayak. There
are boats, such as the Caribou, which will fit him better if the Artic
Hawk is too small.

I'm sorry that I did not spell out every little detail, I assumed it
would have been covered in the context of my reply to Mikes post
(which had nothing to do with handling, if you read it). Most paddlers
know that any general claim of one boat being universally better than
another are nonsense, and I did not realize someone would
misinterperate my post in that way.

Why so condescending? It's really not that unusual to read "my boat is the
best there is" posts here and since I don't recall reading any posts from
you in the past (and I've been reading the group since its inception) making
assumptions about how one may intepret your words is a bad idea.