Reflections on the Tuilik

Several months and several new tuiliks later I have several thoughts to share.

Neoprene:  Originally I used 3mm neoprene that was smooth rubber on one side and jersey nylon on the other, but experience with some cuts, tear outs etc. has shown the superior product to be jersey on both sides.  For the two other tuiliks of neoprene that we produced jersey/jersey 3mm was used to great success.


Gore Tex WPB Nylon:  When crafting a tuilik from this fabric cut it generously as there is little to no stretch.   Consider adding 3 inches to all patterns.  Be particularly generous for your coaming.  Also I wore a hole through mine leaning back on the stitches inside my coaming.  I plan to reinforce this area with neoprene when the water temps encourages me to lighten my insulation ;-)

Glue/Cement:  Not knowing any better I tried to use aquaseal as a cement to bond the pieces of neoprene.  This did not work well for the aquaseal has a very long open time which resulted in no bond or I fell asleep before the time for bonding occurred.  It was then that we tried hand stitching the tuiliks together with upholstery thread and then coating the seams with aquaseal.  This method worked though not perfectly as each of the tuiliks could hardly be called waterproof but rather water limiting.  A couple weeks back while at Lake Santa Margarita in CA with the Fresno Kayakers we tried bonding neoprene 3mm with black neoprene cement to make some gloves.  The stuff worked well with one minor issue.  It doesn't seem to ever lose its tack, as such any areas that are coated but not bonded will eventually find some rubber to bond to whether you like it or not.  A solution to this is to first bond the rubber edges together with the black neoprene cement and then coat the seams with aquaseal which cures to a hard protective layer.

Hood Sizing:  If you are 6'2" like me then you will likely want to add an inch or so to the neck portion of the hood on the Qajaq USA pattern.

Front Pocket:  Add one.  Nothing like having to find places for your camera and sunglasses all the time when you are playing with rolls or just want to stow them.  My old practice was to pop my skirt and place them in my lap.  In choppy seas this is a poor choice of stowage.

Bungee Holes:  On mine I had the coaming bungee come out of one hole which rapidly spread and formed a nice rip in the tuilik.  On the three subsequent tuiliks and skirts I placed two holes a couple inches apart and have had no tears.

California Kayaker

I have been enjoying this magazine as of late.  They offer gratis pdf's of the print edition. http://www.calkayakermag.com

Skeg for Abi

'Abi,' John's new boat, is headed to the coast for her briny christening.  We had her out on the lake yesterday and she did great.  A  17 3/8" beam, 18' 3" length with a 6 3/4" back deck has her slicing through the water and rolling like a seal.  She is a beautiful boat.

John leaves in the A.M. and since the wind was not blowing at all yesterday we don't yet know how she will handle.  Since my boats have a tendency towards some weather cock it seemed prudent to equip the boat with a means to track when the sweep strokes and butt shift lose their effectiveness.  

Greenland boats are often seen with skegs attached with cord or webbing.  I usually dowel on a short but longish skeg just aft of the cockpit and shave it over time until the track is just right.  Having never produced a strap on skeg this seemed the perfect opportunity.  

John prepped a skeg as we would normally do out of some redwood in the shop.  Two holes were drilled in the skeg for cording, we used some reflective deck line left over from his boat (thanks Paul).  The holes were drilled a scosh smaller than the cordage.  

The lines were cut to allow sufficient length for a loop at one end to tighten with a trucker's hitch.  Cords were fed through the holes and adjusted to place the loop just on the deck when brought around the hull.  A small brad was driven into the bottom of the skeg to secure the cord in place.  

To protect the edge of the deck from the biting cord we cut some leather pieces with and drilled them with a very tight fitting cording hole.  This should prevent them from slipping off. These were threaded onto the cord.  

The finished product tightens well, looks pretty good and cost some shop scraps and a couple beers to produce.  Not to shabby.

' Abi '

Mittens Are Warm

Wandering the mountains in the winter will convince any sober individual of the need for keeping your digits in working order.  Snowboarding, snowshoeing, skiing and winter fishing worked on my hands in a most uncomfortable fashion until I discovered the mitten.  It was on a particularly cold winter day while snowboarding that I lost a glove on the lift.  My good friend's father was ski patrol and had gotten us on the mountain half day for free and I had a few dollars in my rather sad looking wallet.  Into the skin-you-alive shop also known as the gear shop I went.  On the rack were a sexy new pair of gloves complete with leathery palm bits all at a minor cost of way more than I had or the clearance bin mittens in XL which felt thinner than my long johns on insulation.  So I am on my way up the lift with my new mittens when I notice something strange.  My hands are warmer than I can recall them ever having been in my gloves.  Converted I was.

Fast forward two decades and several pairs of fingerless rag wools and mitten shells later.  Today my obsession lies firmly in the aquatic realm of sea kayaking, or more specifically Greenland style sea kayaking.  Having completed a Tuilik and a pair of mittens to go with them I decided to improve on the design.  Pair one consisted 4 bits of neoprene sewed to produce a mitten.  Pair two consisted of the same basic design as pair one but with sleeker lines and a better cinch cord.  Pair three have taken a new road. 

Wandering on the qajaq influenced web I stumbled across some images of mittens made and used in the arctic.  With what I gather is a rather chilly climate it was simple enough to reckon that these gloves must be rather well designed.  A far better understanding of gear and its both inherent vulnerabilities and those which can be mitigated started to take shape.  A sewn garment is at its weakest at the seam.  This is especially true for waterproof items.  It became clear to me.  The next phase in my mitten quest would involve an attempt at significantly reducing seamed lengths.

The perfect guinea pig in any case is a monkey.  But since all I have handy is my 19 month old daughter Lili she'll have to do.  With Lili's hand placed ever so cutely on a clipboard her hand and forearm were traced.  Then a general silhouette was produced of her hand.  This with some seam allowance added was copied three times onto another piece of paper.  Modifications were made to provide fabric for the thumb and voila, glove.

My dear little girl put them on with a bit of help and proceeded to wear them from the living room to the bathtub and then after some wringing out with a towel, to bed.  The next step will be to take this general pattern idea and produce some paddling mittens which will hopefully fit well, be comfortable on the paddle, have minimal seams as well as good seam placement and provide a watertight seal along the seams and at the wrist cinch cord.

Tuilik

Creating a tuilik has been a journey of procrastination.  Shawn Baker's pattern was invaluable  Qajaq USA Patter.  However some clarification on the process of joinery would have been helpful.  It is my goal to provide this insight to you reader whoever you may be.
I chose to join the neoprene (2mm smooth/jersey, from http://hookloopoutlet.com/neoprene-sheets--nylon---smooth-skin.html with hand sewing and aquaseal (I bought scads of Aquaseal from ebay as the price annihilated the dive shop price).  I received the rubber and promptly played on it with my 19 month old daughter Lili.  Lili is an excellent judge of all things kayak so her approval was very much appreciated.

The lines were drawn, cuts were made and procrastinator-y confusion ensued.  After begging a friend to sew it for me, attempting a glue only joint (I slept through the part where the glue was ready to join) and fiddling with my dear spouses sewing machine, it was determined that hand stitching would be the ticket.

Much to my surprise this process went fairly quickly and in two evenings a tuilik took shape.  In conjunction with heckling John and Paul while they worked away on Abby (John's new boat), glue was spread or rather glopped onto the tuilik seams.  I had my doubts as to how effective this approach would be, but as evidenced by my paddling this afternoon in the jacket success was had!  Soonish, when the poor thing is given the time to dry out..., a seam sealing coat will be added to the inside as well.


The perfect compliment to this tuilik and the opportunity granted by having adequate neoprene left over for such an enterprise, a pair of mittens were crafted as well.  They came together quite simply with some paper pattern play, stitching,  and a little Aquaseal sealant.

The final touch will be the addition of a bungee cinch strap to seal them to my wrists and then voila, finito, I'm done.


It is my wish that some web drifter searching for tuilik demystification will alight upon this page and be emboldened to see it through.  Good luck and pleasant paddling.

Dawn is complete.  She is 18' 4"  and beautiful.  Abby and Charlotte are in the mix.  Abby has ribs.  Charlotte possesses two sequoia wood beams, very cool.  John has taught us the behind the neck roll and is dangling his spine roll in plain view for Paul and I to match.  Kayaking is great fun.

We had a wonderful day at Morro Bay in California.  Otters, very large seals and some amazing fish tacos.  Life is so sweet.