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This may be coming your way but as of this year in Nh plugs have to be pulled and bilge dry before you can leave the ramp That's not nearly as bad as we've had things in California, where most lakes require everything to be dry before launching. Wash your boat, or take a "bucket cruise" i...

Curt, I wouldn't sweat the size of the cockpit too much. Even with the full-length cockpit, the 14-foot Can-Yak is pretty cramped for two people, and if they're full-sized adults you won't have much freeboard above the waterline. You probably know this, but with one person aboard you have a ton of r...

You numbers pretty much reflect ours. With the 10"-pitch prop I usually see 29 mph at 5,500 rpm. The 11" prop reduces the rpm to about 5000 with little to no change in maximum speed. It should be noted that our Mk 55 has never been apart, so your newly overhauled motor should have a perfor...

From your description, your Zip is virtually identical to ours, right down to the Mk 55E. As Chris mentioned, it's possible that your prop is slipping on the hub. Out of curiosity, what prop are you running? We found that a 10" pitch, two-blade prop would give us ~30 MPH @ 5500 RPM, and with no...

Congrats on the launch! Your boat looks great. The Can Yak is a little tender around center, but you will get used to it. They're pretty stable on the water. When paddling solo, they seem to perform best if you're all the way aft in the cockpit. I did add the 1" skeg to the boats, but these wil...

I had the same problem with some beautiful 5/4 African mahogany I bought for a coffee table. It's beautiful wood, but it has a ton of internal stresses. I was able to save the project only after I resawed and planed the wood into 1/4"-thick planks, and laminated them to a 3/4" MDF core. Ho...

I would get all the planking installed before making plans to create a transom on one end of your CanYak. Chances are, the problem you describe isn't all that bad, and could probably be corrected with some filler. Once fiberglassed and painted, your sins will no longer be visible. You don't want a r...

Christopher, gluing everything together and encapsulating the bits at the same time is like trying to glue two sticks of butter together. I get all the pieces (frames, stems, etc.) glued together and cured, and then encapsulate. When encapsulating, I brush the epoxy onto the wood and then wipe away ...

Greg, I don't have my Zip plans in front of me, but my memory says that the dimension from Frame 2 to the top of the transom is not shown, but I just went out to my Zip in the garage and the dimension you requested is 51-3/8 inches, as measured from the aft face of the frame to the outside of the tr...

I'm with Gayle on this one for sure. It's a boat. If it was perfect, it would not be a boat! Boat and perfect don't belong in the same sentence. We have a few people who are close. But, even they have a few skeletons in the closet. Bill It's not how many skeletons you have, but how well you hide th...

I traced the patterns onto vellum, then used a light coat of spray adhesive to attach them to the MDF templates I used to make the frame and stem pieces. Once the bits were rough cut to shape, I tacked the templates to the pieces with finishing nails and then cleaned everything up using a pattern-fo...

We terminated the skeg on our Zip two feet forward of the transom, per our 1956 Merc's manual. The skeg had a maximum depth of two inches, which was probably excessive, as you could hear it cavitating during hard turns. You really don't need much down there, just enough to provide some lateral resis...

You might have a look at the Glen-L Pee Wee or one of the small dinghies, e.g., the Imp or the Dinky. The Dinky would be a good choice due to having built-in watertight compartments.

Curt, I scarf-joined the pieces for my sheers and chine logs. I made a 90-degree fence for my miter saw to cut the angles and simply epoxied the lengths together. A 10-degree angle will give you a roughly 6:1 scarf joint, which is adequate for this application. I ripped the pieces slightly oversized...

I think we went with 8.0 degrees from vertical on our Zip's seating, and if I were to do it again I would probably increase this to 12--15 degrees. Ours just seems a little too vertical. I would go out to your car, set the seat at some angle everyone likes, and use that as a starting point. -Mark Sh...