Tom Yost Sea Flea

I've had a few questions about Fiona's kayak.  Its a design by Tom Yost called a Sea Flea.  His website is called Yostwerks and it has detailed plans and a long building manual.  Tom doesn't charge for his designs or support and provides the information to encourage and enable people to get into kayaking.

The Sea Flea is a skin on frame (SOF) kayak made with a fuselage style frame.  There are a series of plywood frames with stringers attached, very much like a model aircraft.

Ready for covering

The ideal wood to use for the stringers ,due to strength and weight, is Western Red Cedar (WRC).  It is strong enough and only weighs 380 kg per cubic metre.  Oak by comparison weighs 750 kg per cubic metre, both float as sea water is 1073 kg per cubic metre.  WRC is so rot resistant that it is used untreated to make roof shingles (wooden roof slates) in places like Kentucky USA and has a 30 year lifespan!  Kentucky has a climate very similar to the UK in terms of rainfall, but it is hotter in the summer and colder in the winter, so 30 years without rotting there shows some serious rot resistance.

First time out we fitted stabilizers

Tom Yost encourages people to modify his designs and experiment with new building processes and techniques.  Here is a picture of the first cockpit layout, it was an ocean cockpit as per the plans.

Ocean cockpit Sea Flea

Fiona was comfortable in the ocean cockpit, getting in was easy, but a wet exit wasn't.  The problem could have been solved training and practice but a change to keyhole cockpit was made to make it safer for her and other novices.

New longer keyhole cockpit

The Sea Flea is the second skin on frame kayak I've made.  The first one was a cheap summer project to entertain my son and was made from any kind of scrap wood lying around and still ended up light enough for a 13 year old to hold with one hand!

The build process was fun and the result surprisingly capable

The white kayak above was another Tom Yost design that I increased by 20% to make a 13.5 foot by 24 inch kayak.  The shape and behaviour on the water of this kayak was very similar to an Easky 15.  It was easy for my son to paddle and control, my wife also loved paddling this kayak.  I was able to paddle it but getting in and out was very difficult with my long legs.

Sadly the white kayak didn't survive the winter, the scrap pine and fabric skin rotted beyond saving.  It was an excellent prototype and we spent less than 30 pounds making it.