Twins!  

    Part 1 by CHRIS SPOONER 

Announcing the safe launching of twin Diva sea kayaks on June 12, 

at the Sovereign Waters Estate Lake, Brisbane. 

They both weighed in at a lightweight 40 pounds, and measured exactly

16 feet. Both were conceived in Gladstone where their father is now 

recuperating after their nearly five month gestation. After a joyful 

release into the water, and delighted frolic in their natural environment, 

they are now both happily resting at home with their mothers, Karen and

Vikki, in Brisbane where they will be well cared for and taken on outings 

on Moreton Bay and to the Islands during weekends and holidays. 

For the last couple of years while residing in YES, I’ve been busy in my 

shed once more - just so that I would have something to write in AABB, 

of course. I thought it was within my building capabilities. I tried to get 

Karen to agree to me building two at once - one for her partner as well. 

Karen agreed, after all, what’s life if you can’t share it together in a 

couple of kayaks? 

Is it togetherness when one person paddles off leaving the other on the 

beach? All our efforts came to nothing though, as her partner wanted to 

see a finished one before committing his money, which was fair enough. 

Brisbane, I have spent time at my day job working in an office where I met 

a young lady named Karen. Karen is a not so typical woman in that she 

juggles a full time job, numerous sports and all the while is studying 

furiously for a Marine Biology degree. Her sporting activities 

are mostly water based, tied loosely with her chosen degree course. 

She once mentioned that a kayak would be a useful addition to her 

sporting toys range. I agreed, and tried to cajole her into building a 

kayak herself. 

There are plenty of plans to choose from, some kits available, and I 

was prepared to assist her if and when she got stuck. Her handy father 

would be a source of help and tools. Lots of good reasons why she 

could build one, but in the end her busy, no, hectic, schedule helped 

persuade her that she really didn’t have the time to commit to part one 

such a project, aside from getting over her initial self doubts about her 

boat building capabilities. 

She still definitely wanted one, so in the end I agreed to build one for 

her. She would pay for the materials, and I would do the building for her. 

I was happy enough to help out a friend, and it was something else I 

could build without adding to my own ever increasing fleet. I was being 

relocated for work once again, as mentioned in my ‘Not a Bug’ article 

published in AABB #46, so we scheduled the building project to 

begin once I was settled into the next shed. What 

kayak did she want me to build? There are plenty 

of shapes, sizes and styles to choose from as we 

found when I searched the internet for some plans 

and pictures for Karen to select. She settled on the 

16’ Diva sea kayak from B and B Yacht Designs in 

America. The photo of the Diva was just what 

Karen thought she would like. It certainly looked 

pretty with its white hull and varnished decks, and 

So the plans were purchased, and once they 

were to hand, the materials for one kayak were 

bought from our friends at BoatCraft Pacific. 

At about this time, just as I was getting started with 

measuring out the hull shapes, Karen showed 

pictures of what I was building for her to another 

water-sports mad friend of hers, Vikki. Vikki was 

interested. Very interested. Was my offer to build two 

at once still available? Of course it was. So we came 

to a similar arrangement on the price, and I started 

to get another order together for BoatCraft Pacific. 

Yet another work friend and water sports person, 

Jeff, was interested in what I was up to having

seen the photos of the Diva I had at work. Did I 

think he could build one too? Of course I did! With 

my assistance available if needed, Jeff decided to 

join the Diva builders club too. So the order to 

BoatCraft Pacific got even bigger, and was finally 

sent off. 

Some more money went to B and B Yacht 

Designs for royalties, and that was three being 

built simultaneously in Gladstone, even if not all 

in the same shed. 

The Diva hull is built from four long Y shapes - 

two each of bow and stern pieces, each being 

exactly as long as one sheet of ply. One long side 

of each Y is the hull bottom, and the other side of 

the Y is what later becomes the side above the 

chine. The bow and stern pieces are joined with a 

taped butt join, then both of those pieces are 

placed keel to keel to form a large butterfly shape. 

After lacing the butterfly together, some inwales 

and bulkheads are added. Then after gluing, 

filleting and taping the seams, seat supports and a 

foot brace or rudder steering system can be fitted. 

Some deck beams are added, the deck fitted as 

three separate pieces with the cockpit and hatches 

cut out of them, the coaming and rubrails are 

added, hatches made and fitted, and any deck 

hardware added to complete the kayak as you 

want. Paint, varnish and finish to your taste. Add 

a paddle made to the pattern supplied, and you’re 

off and paddling. 

Sounds easy! Let’s see how I coped with 

building two at once. 

In the shed, I got busy studying the plans and 

working out my schedule of tasks, and figuring 

out how I was going to fit both kayaks in the 

available space and still have enough room for 

working around both of them at once. 

The only drawback I noticed was that the plans 

are imperial. I am lucky that I am old enough to 

be fluent in both ‘languages’, so I didn’t have too 

much of a problem with them. 

I have noticed that a lot of plans from overseas 

are now available in either format, which makes it 

easier for everyone. 

Firstly, I marked out the ply, and then painted 

resin over the lines so that when I cut them out 

the splintering from the jigsaw was minimal. The 

plans were clear and accurate, so it was easy to 

mark out the required shapes on to the ply. The 

points marked out were joined by using a spiling 

board to place a curve through them all. Easy! 

CUTTING out 

Cutting out was easy - I just clamped both sheets 

of ply together and cut out the pieces two at once. 

The plans showed where the pieces were to be 

cut from the ply sheets, with the long side of each 

sheet becoming the keel line of each hull. Trusting 

the sheet to be straight, as it was, gave an easy 

way of getting a straight keel. 

The taped butt joins on the hull were next. The 

plans suggested a method which I followed. I put 

some plastic onto the workbench, and I put a 

piece of fibreglass tape down onto that. A healthy 

wetting out of the tape with slightly thickened 

resin, and then the two hull pieces were aligned 

and placed over the tape. 

A second tape was then applied to the top of the 

join, and again liberally plastered with thickened 

resin. Another layer of plastic was placed over the 

whole arrangement, and the process repeated for 

the second hull side which was placed on top of 

the first. Once the last tape was applied to the top, 

and more plastic over that again, I heavily 

weighted the whole sandwich together and 

clamped it up for the night. I carefully checked the 

now 16’ long keel line for straightness before 

clamping the whole lot. 

While they were drying, I cut out the second 

kayak’s hull set of four pieces, and got them ready 

for joining. 

Once the first hull joins were dry, the area of the 

joins was given a light sanding. The pressure 

applied by the clamping meant that the tapes had 

set into the ply a little, and the whole joint had 

turned out quite smooth so did not need much 

tidying up. 

With both pieces back on top of each other, I 

drilled all the stitch holes along the keel line, up 

the bow and stern, but only along one bottom side 

of the ‘wings’ - the other side getting their holes

later as the side panels are pulled in during the 

stitching process. 

I used cable ties for the stitching, and loosely 

laced the bow and then down the keel back to 

where the stern started to rise. Incidentally, the 

whole stitching process for one kayak used nearly 

a whole packet of 100 cable ties. 

I then opened out the hull, forming a large 

butterfly with very floppy wings. With a couple of 

supports either side of the hull, I stitched in the 

‘wings’ from the bow back towards the middle, 

drilling the required stitch holes as the wings 

swung in and down, so they lined up with the 

previously drilled holes. 

LACED butterfly open 

I then stitched up the stern section. That was a 

little harder, getting the two ends together and all 

the while trying to wrestle with the last two floppy 

wings. A little more support under the hull was a 

great help, and then I finished off the lacing up 

the rear chines. The two wings didn’t quite meet 

as a smooth butt join, but a couple of little 

supports under the bow and stern let the middle 

sag just a little and the whole lot joined 

beautifully. A little rocker along the keel is formed 

LACED hulls 

by that last adjustment process. Very clever 

thinking from the designer! 

I stitched the wings to each other as well as the 

hull, while the whole assembly was being 

supported at the ends. With the wings joined to 

each other and the hull, the whole kayak suddenly 

becomes quite rigid and strong. 

I then placed the bulkheads inside the hull and 

to start with I used some masking tape to hold the 

hull in firmly on the two bulkheads. I decided they 

were going to be glued in not long after this, so I 

stitched them in too. 

Then I went along the hull tightening up all the 

cable ties to hold the whole lot together more 

rigidly. 

I stood back to admire what had taken so little 

time to achieve. Gee, that was easy, and I nearly 

have a complete hull! 

I have to hand it to the designer - he knew just 

how much timber to remove from the sheets of 

ply to leave behind a perfect hull shape that just 

needs stitching together. Awesome! 

I actually picked up the hull at this point, to 

move it out of the way while I got on with the 

second one, and it balanced perfectly on one hand 

under the taped butt join. It was stiff and strong 

with just the cable ties holding it all together, and 

amazingly light considering it was the better part 

of two whole sheets of 4mm ply. 

The second hull was brought to the same stage 

in a very short time as well. From marking out to 

achieving the complete laced up hull shape was 

only a matter of about four hours for each hull! 

With both hulls sitting beside each other on 

folding workbenches as supports, they looked 

almost identical so the ‘twins’ nickname came to 

mind, and they have been that to me ever since. 

To give each a name, one was VK for Vikki’s 

Kayak, and the other KK, for Karen’s Kayak. 

One thing that did happen during the lacing and 

opening of the hull (going 3D to use an American 

term), was that I found that the hulls did not want 

to curve exactly the same amount up near the 

bow, and again near the stern. The area was the 

part immediately in front of the chine cut. One 

hull especially had the two panels wanting to flex 

the same way - one out like it was supposed to, 

the other parallel to it so the curve was facing in. 

I could ‘pop’ it out, and it would pop back in. I 

was not overly worried - once the inwales and 

bulkheads were fixed in, I braced the side out to

where I wanted it, roughly symmetrical with the 

other side, and laid in some fibreglass tape. Once 

that was all dry, the curve was fixed in the braced 

position. The lesson learned was that ply sheets 

have ‘sides’. If you want identical and opposite 

hull shapes, turn one ply sheet over and cut them 

with either both labels together, or on opposite 

sides. Don’t cut them stacked with both labels 

facing up. 

Next came the inwales which were shown on 

the plans as being 5/8” x 5/8”, which came to about 

16mm x 16mm. I cut these from some 19mm 

Meranti, and as the timber was not as long as the 

GLUING inwales 

hulls, cut extra pieces and scarphed them together. 

While I was using the saw bench, I also cut some 

10mm x 10mm pieces from the same timber to be 

the rub rails which would go on later, and 

scarphed them together as well. 

Previously, the bulkheads had a little piece cut 

out of the top corners so the inwales could nestle 

into them, and another piece out of the middle of 

the top for the deck beams to go through. 

The inwales were used to help fair the sheer line 

before being installed, by clamping them along 

the outside of the hull. Once the line was fair, they 

were installed inside the hull. Again, I had the 

usual fun of trying to cut them to the right length 

while wrestling them into a curve. The bow and 

stern of kayaks meet at quite a close angle, so the 

ends of the inwales had quite a long triangular 

section removed to let them meet and join in a 

straight line along the centreline of the hull. The 

shape of the hull as it curves out to the width of 

the bulkheads and also sweeps along the sheer, 

induces a bit of twist to the inwales as they fit into 

the bow and stern. Add to that the pressure the 

inwales place on the cable-tied ends of the hull as 

they are trial fitted and trimmed, and it becomes a 

tricky bit of fitting.

Just to make it trickier, the inwales are set up from 

the sheer by a few millimetres so the angles the 

deck forms to the sides can be planed onto them 

without affecting the recently trimmed sheer line. 

I bought a couple of buckets of brightly coloured 

small spring clamps - similar to clothes pegs - and 

used them to hold the inwales in place during 

the trial fitting and subsequent gluing. They 

worked a treat, and the hulls looked very pretty 

with two rows of 40 brightly coloured clamps each 

side! 

The pressure of the inwales was trying to force 

the ends of the hull apart a little, and also twist the 

hull. I lined up the hull and just back from the 

bow I drilled right through the hulls and inwales 

and then pulled the whole lot tight with a cable 

tie. I did the same for the stern. It was a lot easier 

than trying to get some clamps to hold it! Once the 

glue had dried, the cable ties were pulled out and 

the holes filled. It worked well, with the hull 

straight and the bow and stern pieces joined 

beautifully. 

Once the inwales were in place, the final shape 

of the hull was set so the gluing of the keel and 

chines on the inside of the hull could be started. 

The bulkheads could be glued in too. 

For the first hull, I just glued in the cable ties, 

and then trimmed the ends off them once the glue 

was dry. It made for a slightly bumpy looking 

surface that was not totally hidden when the filler 

and tape was applied later. Not being happy with 

that, although it is mostly all out of sight once the 

kayak is finished, for the second hull I glued 

between the cable ties, cut them out once that 

glue was dry, and then just filled in the gaps 

between the hardened glue with more glue. The 

finish was much better, and the subsequent fillet 

and taped seam much smoother. Well worth the 

extra time waiting between glue jobs. The 

bulkheads were glued in place at this time and I 

made sure the inwale cut out was well sealed with 

glue on both sides as well. 

The plans suggest laying in the fillet and taping 

over it straight away while the fillet is still soft. A 

carefully brushed on coat of resin over the tape 

while the whole lot is still wet makes for a very 

smooth fillet once it is all dry - I had very little 

fairing to do afterwards. With the tape set into and 

bonded with the fillet underneath, the join is very 

strong indeed. Getting glue, filleting material and 

wetted out tape right up into the V of the bow and 

stern was tricky and very messy. I used a syringe 

and ice cream sticks for the runny stuff, and 

tongue depressors to manipulate the tape. 

The whole inside of the hull then got a couple 

of coats of resin. 

Although the plans don’t call for it, I decided to 

glass sheath the whole of the cockpit area, from 

inwale to inwale, between the bulkheads. I 

figured that a lot of stress would be applied to the 

hull in this area, as this is where people enter and 

exit the kayak. I had also decided to glass the 

outside of the hull which is an option mentioned 

in the plans, but not having done any glassing 

before, wanted to do a small section for practice. 

It was not as easy as I thought it would be, and I 

learned a lot from doing the cockpit area. The 

cloth kept sliding around once it was wet out, and 

I found it tricky to get the cloth to stay up the 

sides. The biggest problem, I found out later, was 

that I had too much resin in there. I was using a 

brush and applied lots of resin, brushing it around 

and dabbing to wet out the cloth. The cloth was 

swimming in the resin, instead of being hard 

against the ply and just wet enough to be clear. 

A better way is to use a squeegee, which wets 

out the cloth and pushes the cloth hard against the 

hull so it is less likely to move around. The 

squeegee also moves the resin puddle around, 

leaving the cloth wet but not swimming. I used 

this technique on the second kayak cockpit, and 

the finish was much smoother. My frustration and 

stress levels were much lower too! 

I thought that the area inside the hull and under 

the hatches would look dark once the deck was 

fitted. Drop something inside a hatch and it could 

disappear into the black hole and not be seen 

again. So I got the okay from Karen and Vikki to 

paint the insides of the hull as well, which I did 

next. 1 coat each primer, undercoat and topcoat, all 

being International Paints. The white ‘Brightsides’ 

almost glows, it’s so bright and glossy. 

I trial fitted the deck beams, and while looking 

at the whole arrangement decided that to turn the 

hull over to work on it before fitting them would 

be a good idea. The hull would sit very still on the 

inwales while I glassed the hull, as opposed to 

being harder to support without damaging the 

beams or deck and possibly being a little wobbly. 

So that’s what I did, and it worked a treat. After 

filling and fairing all the seams, and giving the ply 

a couple of coats of resin to seal it, it was time to 

attempt that most feared of jobs (well for me 

anyway) - the glassing of the hull.

I laid the cloth over the upturned hull, poured 

resin onto it at the keel line, and used the 

squeegee to work the puddle of resin down to the 

sheer line. Working on one side for a couple of 

feet, then doing the other side for about the same, 

and working backwards and forwards alternately 

as well, I got the hull glassed in about an hour. I 

used a brush to help wet out the cloth too, 

especially over the chine and the keel line where 

the squeegee would starve the cloth of resin. 

The ends of the hull were a bit tricky, but a small 

GLASSING hull 

cut in the cloth along the keel line helped. I got 

the cloth from one side to fit over the keel and 

stuck it down with resin, and then the excess cloth 

from the other side was laid over the keel and the 

first layer of cloth. Once it was all dry, filled and 

sanded smooth, you couldn’t tell there were two 

layers overlapping. It was good for abrasion 

resistance too, with the two layers right where the 

bow could land on the beach. 

I applied two filler coats of resin to the cloth, 

and when it was all filled and smooth, I took the 

hull outside for some serious sanding. The hull 

was gleaming and shiny, looking like it had been 

varnished. Nowhere could the weave of the cloth 

be seen or felt, and the wood grain pattern could 

be seen very clearly. 

Using my random orbital sander, I sanded the 

hull until the whole thing was one smooth grey 

looking surface with no shiny low points, ready 

for the primer to go on. What a shame to destroy 

such a fine glossy look, but the hull was going to 

be painted and the wood hidden anyway. 

While one hull was upside down and getting its 

glassing done, I also worked on the other hull, 

doing the sheer line, inwales and bulkheads, and 

then gluing and filleting the keel and chines. The 

same painted finish inside the hull was also done 

after the cockpit glassing, before the hull was 

turned for glassing. The glassing went as well as 

the first one, but I decided to add a further layer 

of tape along the keel for added abrasion 

resistance. Another three coats of filler resin were 

applied over the whole lot before it too was taken 

outside and sanded down ready for painting. 

Both hulls were turned back up the right way 

and placed into padded cradles ready for the 

decks to go on. 

Oops! The seat supports and some foot braces 

have to go in - right where I have painted in the 

cockpit. Darn it, not thinking ahead, and I’m out 

of sequence. 

I had to sand back some paint and glue in the 

seat supports. The supports are shown to be 4mm 

ply with some circular doublers where the seat 

rods go through them, but I decided to make them 

out of a complete double laminate instead. They 

were much easier to make like that, and added a 

lot more strength to that whole area. 

I had to make some foot braces and sanded 

back some of the keel line inside the hull to 

mount them too. 

The plans show a small piece of timber to be 

 

SEAT supports in 

glued along each side of the hull, for a bought 

foot brace to be attached to. In another kayak 

instruction book I have, I had seen plans for an 

adjustable foot brace system that was centrally 

mounted in the cockpit, and I decided to have a 

go at building a pair of them. The foot brace part 

I made to the plans, but the adjustable rail system 

with its hooks and ropes I decided to change to a 

set of six stainless steel nuts set into the centre of 

the rail, to give six different positions for the foot 

brace to bolt into. The finished system works well. 

So with the foot brace and seat supports finally 

glued in, the deck could go on.