Welcome to our kayak page. Here you will find pictures of the boats we have built for ourselves as well as what you can expect if you decide you would like William to build one for you...

Our boats are CLC designs built from kits, built in 1999 and 2001. We started with William’s Pautuxet the first year. This is a hard chine design that one person can build, but four hands are better when it comes to positioning and repositioning the slippery fiber glass cloth or tacking down the deck.

Building Time: CLC approximates 90 hours for a boat like the pautuxet which we found to be fairly straightforward and relatively simple compared to the West River 164. Finishing is another matter entirely, depending on personal preference of a wood finish over a painted finish, the time can vary considerably.

Maintenance: These are wooden boats, Brazilian plywood, so they need yearly attention, from painting, and the usual replacement of worn and tired deck rigging to fully sanding the deck every few years and reapplying a base coat of epoxy under a few new coats of spar varnish. We recommend high gloss for the added UV protection. I applied a little (okay...allot) extra apoxy to my boat in the beginning and I think it paid off when a strap slipped and it flew off the car going down the Garden State Parkway. Fortunately it hit grass so there was very little damage; a loosened knee brace and a few surface cracks in the deck that have been filled with epoxy and are probably stronger than before. It's true what they say...these boats are tough, and easy to build if you have the space and you can build one yourself, or, have us do it! Price depends on the kit. Both boats track very well, and both are relatively light, weighing 38-40lbs.
William fiberglassing the hull (Spring 1999).

This is the West River built in 2000. I had just about given up the idea of owning a kayak, as all the models I tried seemed like death traps to me, too tipsy, too light, too heavy to track. It might have had something to do with one of our test runs taking place between the two hurricanes that hit the Maine coast in 1999. We had borrowed two boats, William was paddling a plywood multi-chine design by boatbuilder Eddie Epstein. I was in a wood-frame skin boat built by Laurie Barg. It had an amazing exotic, primoridial character to it. It made me feel like I had metamorphosed into a sea creature. But it didn't do much for my confidence when we started to get bashed by the hurricane. I know the skin boats are tough, but it was all about the psychology for me. Thin skin equals going under.

Getting back to the Hurricane: We had just paddled up Somes Sound (Acadia National Park Maine), the water was seductively calm, and so clear, the usual lull before a storm with tide running out to sea. Just as the ocean came into full view the wind picked up, blowing swiftly out to sea as well. Trying not to panic we quickly turned to paddle back. It was an ardous hour compared to the relatively few minutes it had taken to coast out, made more so by the building hurricane winds now thrashing the coast. The first half was relatively quick compared to the second, midway back we were struggling hard, the swells were unbelievable. It was a rude awakening to the responsibility of kayaking; the fact that we had no rescue gear, not to mention skills, or the awareness to have checked the weather. William was less impressed by the outing, with years of experience sailing he had come through many storms. His comment is that there wasn't that much wind. I wasn't so relaxed about it and decided I would give it up or find a boat I was willing to die in. Fortunately for us we made it in that day, however, just a few miles from where we were struggling with monster swells a couple was swept off the rocks by a rogue wave, to their death. It was their honeymoon. A constant reminder that the ocean demands respect. After that trip I had all but abandoned the idea of kayaking untill... ...I spotted the WestRiver 164 on top of a car in Montpelier Vermont. It was love at first sight, in an infatuated daze I said "that's my boat." Sure enough we fit together very well, to the degree that I was able to surf her in over complicated waves at the mouth of the Delaware Bay estuary, and can re-enter without the use of a paddle float, because she's so stable.
 
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CLC West River 164 and Pautuxet (2001). Photo: Barbara Katzin – Denmark

William adjusting paddle float, Long Pond, 
S.W. Harbor Maine (2002).

Maine 2001 - View from Little Potato, looking towards Stonington, Maine.

Paddling the Maine coast was the first test of our map reading skills, meaning, we had none. Better put, we hadn't even considered using maps at that point. William had always sailed without the use of a map as he knew the waters surrounding Cape Cod by heart, and I had always trusted that my brothers or father knew where they were going when we headed out for day trips in the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean. Heck I thought marine maps were art objects, collectors items, distinctly framed on someone elses wall.

On this trip we launched down by the Boat Building School in Stonington Me. and headed directly for the nearest island. We beached on Little Potato, which is a great place for an overnight, truly pristine little beach, big enough for one party only. Beaching right after us, a couple of empty nesters like ourselves, rigged to the nines. Perhaps they mistook us for lost children, or perhaps lost without their children, as they set about to admonish us for not having a map on deck. It was just too beautiful a setting to argue, and by the look of their boats we could see they were alpha, so we rolled over and they immediately softened their voices and explained that we had just paddled over a host of rocks that would normally have punctured our boats had the tide been lower. Well maybe...I knew how much epoxy I had used on my boat, inside, outside and upside down, so I wasn't so convinced. But like good little seadogs we padded off to the store and bought nautical maps for the entire Atlantic seaboard. The next outing we took our map and tried to navigate by it around the labyrinth like coastline and confusing, evasive islands and inlets. We got lost.

Jayne with map on deck and punk red hair. Hand Carved Inuit Paddle by William Morrison, 
N.W. Harbor, Acadia, Maine (2002).

Seal Harbor, Maine 2002.

Notice how each photo of Maine looks like the next, even though these shots were taken miles apart. It really is easy to get turned around if not extremely carefull, especially along the coast between Acadia and Stonington.

Every coastline has its idoicyncracies. In Maine much of it is determined by the wind, along the Delaware its the tides, and in the St. Lawrence between the wind and tides, which are higher than anywhere we've paddled, a dream can turn into a paddlers nightmare in a matter of minutes.

View from L’Anse-de-Roche, looking due west toward Baie Sainte-Marguerite. 
Quebec (2002).

Autumn 2002: Heading out across the Saguenay Fjord toward Baie St. Marguerite.

Another live to tell tale. We had never paddled this section of the Saquenay River. We knew about the extreme tides in the St. Lawrence, the swift rush of water when the tides change, but we hadn't really put it together, that all that is magnified considerably here at the mouth of Baie St. Marguerite. Naïve as usual we started across toward the baie, I was extremely anxious, fighting the urge to bolt back to land, my fear overcome by the fascination of the opal like blackness of the water. A mix of fresh and salt water host to a diverse population of sea mammals, it's true what they say that the fjord does not readily reveal its true nature, mysterious and very moody, the tides rush through those points of land like a bucket being emptied, with no visible clue from the surface of the water. All this came together as we tracked our boats toward those two points of land, but not before we were joined by a local kayaker who paddled up along side us and in the most tactful, polite Canadian way asked if we knew what we were doing. The very fact that we were headed in that direction at that moment told him we knew nothing about the force of water that was about to overtake us, one that would have sent our boats into a determined spin before shooting us like leaves, down river with the tide. A white water kayakers dream. Short story is we got in line behind our gracious guide, along with his companion, and paddled along the coast, clear of the imminent tide. To the instruction of our guide we timed the moment with great care and made it across to the other side (see below). Essentially, there is a small window in which a kayaker can hope to navigate the deep waters that well the entrance to the baie. 

 William moving the boats up. South shore of the Saguenay River near Baie St. Margaurite, Quebec. Waves are from a passing ocean liner.

           2002 - Paddling the open waters of the St. Lawrence where one can often see Fin Whales. This photo is taken from my boat near Le Escoumins, Quebec . 

                Mountain Ash Berries, Northern Quebec (Ollin 2002).