It was a regular contributor to Duckworks Magazine who bought a set of Egret plans and then suggested that I approach Chuck about making them available online. Now they are. Click HERE to order plans.

Egret is a seventeen foot skin-on-frame kayak with an easily assembled fuselage frame and a variety of covering options. One could cover it with traditional canvas, but the included building manual focuses on heat-shrink Dacron. This aircraft fabric can be used alone, sealed with paint or varnish, or it can be covered with clear Hypalon. Another option is to sheathe the Dacron with a layer of Xynole and epoxy. This kind of laminated skin is, as far as I know, my own innovation, and it yields an extremely tough yet light and flexible hull.

The following is adapted from two articles previously published in Messing About In Boats.

Introducing Egret

Egret: a skin-on-frame kayak (click images to enlarge)

In 1959 my dad built a canvas-skinned kayak from a kit. It had a wood frame that went together more easily than a model airplane: a keel, a stem and a stern, some bulkheads and frames positioned along the keel, and stringers strung along the length to give it shape. It was easy to build, was well used for many years, and its frame still hangs from the ceiling of my shop.

There are lots of good plans for homebuilt kayaks on the market these days, but few are for skin boats. Most of them are for plywood or strip plank construction. The current trend in skin boats seems to be toward personalized arctic replicas, which are beautiful boats, but must be laboriously mortised, lashed, knotted and stitched together. They are not easy to build.

The current trend in skin boats seems to be toward personalized arctic replicas. They are not easy to build.

Egret addresses this lack of graceful and easy-to-build skin-on-frame kayaks with its fuselage-style construction, and she also adds to the genre by utilizing newer methods of covering a wood frame. Dad’s kit was covered in canvas and shrunk taut with canvas dope, which is still a strong and viable way to cover a kayak, but modern materials provide attractive alternatives.

Heat-shrink Dacron, used on ultra-light aircraft and boats, is much easier to attach to the frame than canvas, and shrinks taut and wrinkle-free far more easily. Dacron can be used by itself for minimal weight, or it can be coated with Hypalon, which is now available in a tough clear-coat form, UA-7090. A Dacron skin can also be reinforced with a layer of laminating fabric such as Xynole, set in epoxy, to form a tough and flexible composite hull.

Egret is a stable and maneuverable kayak. She tracks well yet turns easily. Her low profile and beveled deck shed wind and water, and her high bow keeps her above the waves. She was conceived by sifting through all the attributes I liked in the native boats in Adney & Chappelle and elsewhere, and by considering the virtues and faults of contemporary kayaks.

She tracks well yet turns easily. Her low profile and beveled deck shed wind and water, and her high bow keeps her above the waves.

The bulkhead-and-stringer-style skin kayak merits a revival, and Egret aspires to lead the way. This can be the cheapest, quickest and easiest way to build your own kayak. Good looks, quality and performance are part of the package.

Egret Prototype Report

After four seasons, the original Egret is every bit as sound as she was the day she was launched. Her heat-shrink Dacron skin with two coats of Hypalon UA7090 has held up well. There are no leaks despite much flexing in rough water, and also many highway-speed air miles atop the car. It is an aircraft fabric, after all. We almost found some rocks once at low tide but leaned away at the last moment so there are still no crash test data. The frame has held together well, too. The epoxy joints at the intersection of every frame and longitudinal allow an egg-crate distribution of stresses and make for a light, strong and durable boat.

The first person to paddle Egret other than myself was the gentleman in the bracing photos. The occasion was the 2004 John Gardner Small Craft Workshop at the Mystic Seaport. He slid nimbly into the boat and took her out for a spin on the river. Upon his return he declared that she needed a skeg, then proceeded to perform some kayak hydrobatics, bracing out with the paddle and leaning the boat over. He braced out progressively farther and leaned over until the coaming was almost awash, then looked up at me and said “Won’t go over.”

	Upon his return he declared that she needed a skeg...
	... then proceeded to perform some kayak hydrobatics, bracing out with the paddle and leaning the boat over.
	He braced out progressively farther and leaned over until the coaming was almost awash, then looked up at me and said “Won’t go over.”

“That can be a good thing, too” I replied, not entirely sure what he meant. He conveyed an air of expertise, and for all I knew he might have been the Shackleton of eskimo rolling, but Egret was not designed as a rolling boat. Egret is a stable, seaworthy kayak designed for the 98% of kayakers who prefer to remain upright. The gentleman scurried off before I could catch his name or plumb his thoughts.

He was correct about the skeg. He was an economically proportioned person, slim of frame and not tall. I am too, and being fully aware that many people weigh more than I do, I incorporated more buoyancy aft than I would have had the boat been designed for me alone and not for the general public. And I, too, found at first that the stern seemed to slew a bit from side to side, mostly in flat water. When I watched my slim sister, who weighs the same 130 pounds and stands the same five foot eight as I do, paddle Egret about, I could see that the stern floated a little high, just skimming the water at the aftmost end of the keel. But I have also watched folks who are in the 160-180 lb. range paddle Egret, and her stern settles right down into the water and she tracks just fine. So now the prototype, my personal kayak, has a skeg, and now she tracks like a bloodhound on rails.

I therefore recommend that a skeg be added if the primary paddler of an Egret weighs less than 150 lbs. My skeg is 1 7/8” deep at the aft end of the keel and tapers to 3/16” just aft of the cockpit. I suspect that 1/2 to 2/3 of that depth is all that’s really necessary. It might not need to be that long, either. A smaller skeg would generate less friction (theoretically) but the prototype shows no decrease in speed. If anything she’s faster, since more of the paddler’s energy is channeled into going straight. She still turns fairly well, since rocker is maintained forward. She turns very quickly if you spin her atop a wave.

She still turns fairly well, since rocker is maintained forward. She turns very quickly if you spin her atop a wave.

Egret has danced through wild water at the eastern gates of Long Island Sound and has soldiered through many a Bayliner wake. Only in the steepest of those wakes does she pierce the wave, and then the water slides harmlessly around the coaming and off the deck.

The only thing as satisfying as having one’s design objectives work out not only on paper but on the water is the attention Egret attracts at the boat launch and elsewhere. I can’t get her into the water without at least a “Nice kayak.” Often the comments and questions are more expansive. My favorite is the time I pulled into the Post Office with Egret atop the car. First the Postmaster came bounding out the door to have a closer look, saying “Beautiful boat.” An elderly lady was crossing the parking lot and added, in her elderly-lady voice, “It’s not just a boat; it’s a work of art.” I had to go home and change my undershirt.

It is my sincere hope that the readers of Duckworks Magazine will agree with the Postmaster and the elderly lady. Plans, full-size patterns and a detailed instruction book are $70.

Click here to order plans