A modern take on the Igdlorssuit Kayak

This project started through a search for a sea kayak to fit my eight year old daughter. There simply wasn't one available commercially – the closest I could find was a number of references to the Island Kayaks Newt – now unavailable. Further research led me to Duncan Winning, who had documented the Igdlorssuit kayak brought back from Greenland in the 1950s by Ken Taylor, which was the basis for many boats, including the Anas Acuta and Newt.

Duncan provided me with plans for the boat the Newt was based on, which I transferred to CAD.   I then got the panels CNC cut by Alec Jordan of Jordan boats, and built this boat for my Daughter.

During the build, my Engineering mind was at work identifying possible improvements to the build process – I wanted a boat which looked good and had performance to rival the top level composite boats out there. To this end I added features such as a fibreglass moulded cockpit rim, rather than the laminated wood version more common on stitch and glue boats. I'm pleased with the end result – a boat which will last a good number of years and clearly performs well, however the process really identified ways to me in which modern tools and techniques could allow the production of truly custom sized and fitted boats, very light in weight and at a price to rival a quality composite boat. Thus the evolution of the Igdlorssuit kayak continues!