So lets start this update off with the big news first. The Cape Falcon Kayak instructional video courses are now online at cape-falcon-kayak.thinkific.com. Years in the making, these courses include six hours of free videos and over ten hours of video instruction available for purchase. Complimenting these videos are seven, seventeen page downloadable PDF plan sets for each of the Cape Falcon designs.
Video, lighting, and audio gear, graphic design software, editing software, online course platforms, online store platforms, payment systems, and hundreds of hours of work, I'll admit that I vastly understimated the cost, complexity, and difficulty of this project. Now that all the moving parts are in place though, I'm really excited for where we can go from here. I love teaching, sharing, and creating content, so I'm hoping the online classes will be a good fit for me and for the business in the coming years. Learning to Roll Your Kayak, and Building the Adirondack Guide Boat are already in the planning stages.
I want to extend the hugest of thanks to my videographer Linda Freedman, and graphic designer Liz Grotyohann of Highwater Design, without whose tireless efforts none of this would have been possible. Also, a big thank you to Sam Johnson and Chuck Bollong and the Columbia River Maritime Museum for letting us create this course in their boat shop. Chuck teaches a great stitch and glue kayak class at the museum in case your tastes run more towards plywood than skin-on-frame.
Video, lighting, and audio gear, graphic design software, editing software, online course platforms, online store platforms, payment systems, and hundreds of hours of work, I'll admit that I vastly understimated the cost, complexity, and difficulty of this project. Now that all the moving parts are in place though, I'm really excited for where we can go from here. I love teaching, sharing, and creating content, so I'm hoping the online classes will be a good fit for me and for the business in the coming years. Learning to Roll Your Kayak, and Building the Adirondack Guide Boat are already in the planning stages.
I want to extend the hugest of thanks to my videographer Linda Freedman, and graphic designer Liz Grotyohann of Highwater Design, without whose tireless efforts none of this would have been possible. Also, a big thank you to Sam Johnson and Chuck Bollong and the Columbia River Maritime Museum for letting us create this course in their boat shop. Chuck teaches a great stitch and glue kayak class at the museum in case your tastes run more towards plywood than skin-on-frame.
In addition to the online classes and plans the other thing we've been hard at work on is the Cape Falcon Kayak online store. One of the biggest hurdles in putting a skin boat together is simply sourcing all the materials and accessories. Our kit for example, includes items from 8 different suppliers. By putting this stuff all in one place you avoid a lot of time, hassle, and shipping charges. We are also offering steam bent White Oak cockpit coamings, which is the only truly hard part of building a skin boat. Stock on these will come and go due to the limited availability of the perfect White Oak we need to build them. Greenland paddles, custom spray skirts, and some pretty neat T-shirts complete the store. We're looking forward to expanding into more products as cash flow allows.
With the video project and store up and running, it's time to start searching out venues for our in person classes next year. As some of you know, we lost our gorgeous shop space on the Oregon coast a few years back, making Cape Falcon Kayak a nomadic operation. Pending a few details I already have plans to teach at the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend, and the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria. I've also got a few private individuals interested in hosting classes. I'm planning on nailing things down during December and posting the schedule online January 1st. I'll then give people a month to plan vacations ect. and open registration Feb. 1st. If you're on the list you'll get an email when the schedule is posted. If you are interested in hosting a class in 2017 get in touch with me now!
Being a traveling boat builder isn't exactly easy, but it does bring me to some interesting places. In October I found myself on stage at the historic Capitol Theater in Rome, NY! It was a surreal experience made all the more so by the organ player who would come in to practice on the gigantic original 1920's pipe organ. Pretty cool.
Being a traveling boat builder isn't exactly easy, but it does bring me to some interesting places. In October I found myself on stage at the historic Capitol Theater in Rome, NY! It was a surreal experience made all the more so by the organ player who would come in to practice on the gigantic original 1920's pipe organ. Pretty cool.
Aside from the big work projects, I got bit by the sailboat bug again this year and managed to finish a cute little traditional work boat called a Delaware Ducker and show it at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. I built the Ducker as a hybrid ply-glass / skin-on-frame which served to renew my disdain for plywood and fiberglass despite having good results with it. The finished Ducker is a great rower and a smart little sailer, albeit one I'm not really using much due to health issues and not actually having anywhere to put it. In light of those two facts, I'm putting it up for sale. For more info and pictures of the build check out the Delaware Ducker page.
While at the boat show I wandered off into the candyland of brightwork and brass (recent accomplishments exempted, I'm a fan of neither), and somehow found my way into the clutches of various cruising talks where people like Lin Pardey and Pam Wall seduce a new generation of cruisers with the idea that sailing is somehow an enjoyable activity. Having grown up with sailboats myself, the words of the late Andrew McCauley come to mind: "Sailing is the worst sport in the world. It's like standing under a cold shower while continuously tearing up money." I'm reminded of my own former girlfriend who once yelled in exasperation: "We're just going back and forth and not getting anywhere!" An apt description for sailing, and at times, life.
Those truths being self-evident, there remains an inexorable pull towards the false promise of steady breezes and distant adventure, and as such I've spent more time than I should as of late wandering the piers and consuming book after book on voyaging and the craft to do it in. Every 30ft full-keeler I walk past seems to whisper "Buy me, fix me up, take me somewhere." I suppose I should probably just get it out of my system.
I'm hoping to crew on some sort of passage this year so if you or anyone you know would like a crew member this year, I know my way around a boat, can build just about anything, and am happy to trade kayaking lessons for sailing lessons. Also, if anyone wants to give me a sailboat for Christmas, or wants to sell one for a song, I promise I'll do something highly entertaining with it, and record the whole experience.
I'm hoping to crew on some sort of passage this year so if you or anyone you know would like a crew member this year, I know my way around a boat, can build just about anything, and am happy to trade kayaking lessons for sailing lessons. Also, if anyone wants to give me a sailboat for Christmas, or wants to sell one for a song, I promise I'll do something highly entertaining with it, and record the whole experience.
Speaking of sale, as usual I have things that must go to make room for things to come. This basically new LPB is one of them. This is a solid boat that's been used twice. I need to get some on the water video of it next month, and then it's available. Price is $1700, which saves you $400 over the price of a new boat and I'll throw in a paddle. If you're interested in this boat let me know.
There's also a barely used Disko Bay kayak in Oneida, NY for sale for only $1000. Built by a student in one of my classes he found it a bit too tight, so we built him another which he loves, but the 1st one now needs a home. This kayak was scaled up 7% meaning it's an exact copy of a traditional hunting kayak that will actually fit someone larger. Ideal weight for this kayak would be 190-215lbs. If you're in the area and in that weight range, this is a rare find and a great deal. Email me if interested.
In non-nautical news, my garden-in-the-city continues to expand providing a psychological anchor with all of the unwelcome changes of the last few years. Seven big vegetable beds, a strawberry patch, an herb spiral, and two year old fig, hazelnut, apple, cherry, and pear trees. This year I grew cucumbers, kale, leeks, pumpkins, sunflowers, zuchinni, carrots, beets, sungold cherry tomatoes, and a delicious heirloom called Cosmonaut Volkov that was given to me by a kayak student at the end of the class.
Finally, circling back to my least favorite subject, those of you who follow my work already know that I've been fighting a savage chronic illness for the last five years that started with chest pain following hard hikes that got worse and worse until I finally had to stop doing almost everything I enjoy, and finally closed the business for a few years.
Things have gotten better, and they haven't. Me and the illness have an uneasy truce. As long as I don't work very hard or do anything fun (bike, hike, walk, run, paddle, surf, or kayak) I can sort-of make it through a day but I still have awful chest pain if I push it even a little bit and sometimes even when I don't. Doctors say it can't be my heart because I pass a stress echo, and I say how could it not be because it gets worse with exercise. I've had serious problems with exercise my whole life (despite appearances) so my money is on some weird rare metabolic problem, but who knows? Bottom line is that I'm still really struggling.
My focus this year is going to be on getting myself somewhere like the Cleveland or the Mayo where they actually see cases like me and have the resources to definitively exclude possibilities. The Mayo was out of reach even when I had a sizeable medical fund, and my insurance has been less than cooperative, but all I can do is keep trying.
The other thing I need to figure out is how to get a home and a shop again. Right now I live in 2 different places, and Cape Falcon Kayak lives in 3 different garages and I spend way too much time driving between them. It's a challenging way to run a business.
I'd like to end here on a positive note. A counterpoint to the complexities of living with a serious chronic illness is the vividness with which it contrasts against the good things. I'm simply floored by how awesome life is every time I get a break from the pain, and while I've never been a slouch when it comes to seeking out beauty, these days I rarely miss an opportunity to appreciate the miracle of being alive. Thank you to all of my friends and students for your support, enjoy the videos, and maybe I'll see you in the coming year.
Things have gotten better, and they haven't. Me and the illness have an uneasy truce. As long as I don't work very hard or do anything fun (bike, hike, walk, run, paddle, surf, or kayak) I can sort-of make it through a day but I still have awful chest pain if I push it even a little bit and sometimes even when I don't. Doctors say it can't be my heart because I pass a stress echo, and I say how could it not be because it gets worse with exercise. I've had serious problems with exercise my whole life (despite appearances) so my money is on some weird rare metabolic problem, but who knows? Bottom line is that I'm still really struggling.
My focus this year is going to be on getting myself somewhere like the Cleveland or the Mayo where they actually see cases like me and have the resources to definitively exclude possibilities. The Mayo was out of reach even when I had a sizeable medical fund, and my insurance has been less than cooperative, but all I can do is keep trying.
The other thing I need to figure out is how to get a home and a shop again. Right now I live in 2 different places, and Cape Falcon Kayak lives in 3 different garages and I spend way too much time driving between them. It's a challenging way to run a business.
I'd like to end here on a positive note. A counterpoint to the complexities of living with a serious chronic illness is the vividness with which it contrasts against the good things. I'm simply floored by how awesome life is every time I get a break from the pain, and while I've never been a slouch when it comes to seeking out beauty, these days I rarely miss an opportunity to appreciate the miracle of being alive. Thank you to all of my friends and students for your support, enjoy the videos, and maybe I'll see you in the coming year.
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