Kayaking People An Interview with Jeff Horton of Kudzu Craft

Kayaking People
An Interview with Jeff Horton of Kudzu Craft
Article by David Eden
Photos by Phil Walton
Jeff paddles his Firefly model, his reimagining of the classic baidarka craft of the Alaskan coast.
J
eff Horton is the owner and designer of
And of course the boats, they amazed
Kudzu Skin-On-Frame boats. See his me when I first "discovered" them. After
ad on the back cover of this issue.
paddling many miles in them I am still
amazed by them. I am surprised more peoWhen did you start Kudzu Craft?
ple don’t paddle them.
January 2010 was the official start date.
What are the advantages of skin-on-frame
There are a lot of boat builders out there. boats?
What made you decide to enter a very comNumber one is the weight. My Shad weighs
petitive market?
29 pounds and my Long Shot is around 32Several factors but mainly a love of boats of 33 pounds. Most of my designs are easy to
all types and a love of woodworking. One keep under 35 pounds. Because they are so
of my favorite quotes is “Choose a job you light and easy to handle you will find you
love, and you will never have to work a day paddle more because it is not a chore to
in your life.” I think I could be happy the load, unload or carry to the water. You don’t
rest of my life working in my shop building need someone to help you carry your boat,
things of wood and spending my spare time you just pick it up and go.
on the water.
Low cost is a very close second. You
can build a nice boat from out plans for
around $350. That includes footrest, deck
rigging, etc., not just a bare boat. You can’t
touch a commercial boat at this light weight
for anywhere near that price. Plus building
the boats can be addictive. Many clients
don’t finish the first one before they start
thinking about the next one.
How would you compare building a SOF kit
compared with a stitch and glue?
There really isn’t much similarity in the
two. Both start with a strong back but that
is about where it ends. There is no epoxy
used in my boats. I never cared much for
working with epoxy. It’s a great product and
it has it place, but I hate the wasted pots of
epoxy, the runs, the sanding, and the dust.
Atlantic Coastal Kayaker • September 2012
1
The Shad, a modified Greenland-style craft.
You don't provide stringers with your kits.
Do you think the prospect of shaping these
may intimidate some prospective customers?
Jeff Horton
My boats are lashed together with artificial
sinew instead of gluing the joints.
Lashing is simple, clean, and strong. If
you can tie a knot and pull a string tight,
you can lash a boat together. Once the
frame is lashed together a protective coat
of oil is applied.
Next step is to sew on the skin. Sewing
terrifies most men for some reason but it really isn’t hard. It will make your hands very
sore but you can clamp off your sewing at
most any point with a pair of hemostats and
pick up later on. Once the fabric is sewn
onto the frame, apply the waterproofing,
add your back band, a seat, any deck rigging and you are ready to go.
It’s a great method for the person that
has an hour here and there to work. Applying the waterproofing is about the only
thing you can’t quit in the middle of and
pick up where you left off.
2
I am sure it does some people. Someone
with no woodworking skills or tools this
could be deal breaker. I think most people
know someone with a saw that can cut
stringers for them. Several of my clients
have gone this route.
I want to offer stringers but living in
the South, finding suitable wood is always a
problem. Then there is the issue of shipping
long skinny pieces of wood. Full-length
stringers would have to go by freight and
that is expensive. Because of the length
most folks would have no way to haul them
from the truck terminal home. Residential
delivery just adds more expense. I looked
into it but it just wasn’t economical.
I have been looking at the possibility
of offering shorter lengths that could be
shipped UPS. The ends would be ready for
the client to glue them together in their shop
into the longer lengths. I still have the problem or a reliable supply of wood but this
might be an option.
You have a number of boats styles that you
have designed. Do you have a background
in design, or how did you start designing
boats?
I guess I have always been drawn to design. I loved architecture as a teenager and
I wanted to be an architect. I took architectural drafting in high school and it came
easily to me. When I graduated high school
the economy was bad and architects were
starving to death so I didn’t pursue it. I
Atlantic Coastal Kayaker • September 2012
started looking for a job not knowing what
else to do.
I had a high mechanical aptitude and I
landed a job as a mechanical draftsman in
local manufacturing plant. I moved on and
worked as a mechanical designer for many
years. I designed everything from simple
tools to machines on the assembly lines in
a General Motors plant. I designed a few
houses on the side. Furniture and woodworking came later on but again I found
that I could catch on quickly and had a good
eye for proportions.
I sold my fiberglass sailboat so I could
build one better suited to single handed sailing. I decided to first build a kayak to keep
me on the water while I built the sailboat. I
couldn’t find anything I liked so I blindly
set about designing my own.
Then I discovered skin boats. I took a
couple of existing designs, combined the
aspects I liked and designed my second
boat. It was a fast little boat but it wasn’t
very stable or comfortable. I never liked it
much because it didn’t fit me or my paddling style.
My buddy Randy kept nudging me to
design a boat for use on our lake for the average paddler and that led to my designing
Curlew. To keep this short I realized I had a
knack for this and Randy kept nudging me
along and here I am.
By the way, I never did get around to
building that sailboat.
Your website shows detailed resistance figures for all of your hull designs. Do you do
your own testing, or are your hulls tested at
some facility?
Very good question, it seems when we redid
the web site the explanations for these numbers were left off. No, I don’t have a tank or
access to one. The resistance numbers are
computer-generated by the design software
using the KAPER resistance formulas created by John Winters.
There are two things to keep in mind
when looking at these numbers. One, if
you try to compare my boat's resistance to
KAPER numbers for someone else’s boat
you have to know the displacement the calculations were based on or can not compare
the numbers. I use the same displacement
in the chart so you have an accurate comparison.
The second thing to look at is the speeds
you normally paddle. Most people think a
longer boat is always faster. A longer boat
may be faster, meaning having lower resistance, at higher speeds but it may be slower
or have more resistance at normal speeds.
If you never paddle fast, you could end up
dragging around a lot of extra boat and actually working harder.
Does nylon's tendency to loosen affect a
boat's paddling efficiency?
Let me start by explaining that nylon is hydroscopic, that means it absorbs water and
when it does, it relaxes or expands. Even
after it is waterproofed it will still do this.
How much it will loosen varies between
different nylons and it seems to do it less
with age. In extreme cases the boat can ac- The Cast Away, 15 feet long, is designed for anglers with frame modifications to allow
inserting a deck plate for mounting rod holders, and with a rear deck hole for the 13" milk
tually wrinkle like a raisin.
To answer your question I seriously crate beloved by fishermen.
doubt there is any noticeable difference.
I had one boat on the first few paddles it
looked like a prune after an hour in the water. I never noticed any difference in the
way it paddled. After a few months it no
longer wrinkled but it would loosen around
the frame to where it wasn’t drum tight. Unless I pointed it out no one ever noticed it
had loosened.
To be fair to nylon, there are methods
like sewing the skin while wet and in the
relaxed state that can minimize this. Also
with age most fabrics do not relax as much.
We have readers of all abilities and paddling interests. Which kit design would you
recommend for the casual day paddler? The
weekend tripper? the racer?
Well that’s not an easy question to answer The Curlew, 15 feet by 22 inches, is a fast cruiser for day use.
without knowing the paddler and what he
wants so I will start with the racers since Firefly to race in MR340 this year.
like a Rec boat, I would suggest looking at
that is the easiest one to answer. Long Shot
For a weekend camping boat first a Mess About or Cast Away if you want to
or Firefly hands down. They are my most choice would be VARDO. That is what I fish.
efficient hulls and therefore my most effi- had in mind when I designed it. It has the
Cast Away started out as a personal
cient boats at faster speeds. Keep in mind I volume for the gear and lots of foot and project; I wanted a fishing boat and it was
am not a racer and don’t want to be. If you legroom. It’s a really good all around boat the hardest design I have ever attempted!
are a hard-core racer you probably would that seems to do most things well. Some of I designed and built three frames before I
want a boat designed for racing by racers. the other boats are fine for weekends, but got it right, but it was worth the effort. It’s
If you want something to paddle and race VARDO was designed for this and has more wider and more stable. I didn’t expect it to
occasionally I think either of these make a space. A lot of day paddlers have built VAR- be a great paddling boat but it totally surgood choice.
prised me. It is a very good paddling boat
DO and are happy with it.
My boats competed in the Phat Water
The casual day paddler is a harder but of course it is on the slower side. But
on the Mississippi river. One client built a one. I always prefer to ask a few questions I was so impressed I came home from the
Firefly for the Missouri 340 last year; I just before making a recommendation for this first paddle and altered the design to create
rushed an order to his son who is building a group. If you are looking for something the Mess About model.
Atlantic Coastal Kayaker • September 2012
3
A frame takes shape in Jeff's shop.
If you were looking for more kayak
and less Rec boat then I say consider a Curlew or Ravenswood. Very similar hulls but
different styling. Both boat hulls were designed to be most efficient in the 3-4 mph
range where most casual paddlers stay. The
stability is lower than most commercial
boats so they will feel a bit tender at first,
but after an hour I find first time paddlers
are totally comfortable. After two or three
paddles, they barely notice the lower stability. The reward is the more efficient hull
and more distance covered for the same
amount of effort. I firmly believe beginners
over rate the need for stability and pay for it
by paddling sluggish boats.
a baidarka.
I did not want the traditional stern design. I was concerned first time builders
would have problems skinning it. I came up
with an idea on Curlew for a unique stern.
My inspiration was the old Fantail launches
so I refer to it as a fantail stern. Some people
love it and others hate it. But it was vaguely
similar to the original and it has the long
rudder like appendage.
I want to mention that there is a big boy's
version of Firefly. It is higher volume with
lots of room for even a really big person. It
was a special request and I decided to offer plans for it and along with the standard
sized model.
We were intrigued by your "modern baidarka," the Firefly. What are the major differences between your design and that of a
traditional baidarka?
It seems that you have made an effort to
make both the traditional baidarka and
Greenland hunting kayak more suitable to
a larger kayaking audience. Did you make
changes to the Greenland design, represented by your Shad model, similar to the
changes to the Firefly?
What I have been able to find suggests the
original boats were very small and very low
on stability. Baidarkas were designed to
suit their owners advanced skills and their
needs. I wanted to do the same thing, tailor
the boat to suit my client’s needs.
Since none of my clients have asked
for a boat they have to wiggle their way into
I added an elongated cockpit and raised the
shear so that the average person can straddle the boat, park their bottom in the boat,
and pull their legs inside.
The hull shape was changed to increase
the stability. I kept the long gentle curving
rocker on the bow and of course I had to
keep the bifid bow shape or it wouldn’t be
4
Yes I made very similar changes. I added
the longer cockpit and raised the sheer line
so you don’t have to wiggle into the boat.
I didn’t increase the volume as much as I
did on Firefly; I wanted to keep the low
profile for a Greenland boat. I can sit in the
seat and pull in my legs but it is a close fit.
Longer legged paddlers would have to sit
on the back deck to get their legs in because
of the lower deck. On my "to do’’ list is to
offer the boat with a longer, 36 inch cockpit
coaming. The extra two inches will make
a big difference and still maintain the low
Atlantic Coastal Kayaker • September 2012
profile look for a Greenland boat. Even so
you still sit with your knees bent, not flat
legged unless you want to. But it is a more
snug fit than most mass-produced boats.
What would you tell a person contemplating building a Kudzu kit?
The Kudzu kayaks are not fragile. That is
one point I have to make over and over. You
don’t have to worry about poking a hole in
the skin hitting a rock or stick. Everyone assumed they rip easy but if you use a proper
skin material it takes a lot to damage one.
If you have doubts, watch the video of me
attacking one of my boats with a hammer.
Jeff has other skin-on-frame kits and plans
available, including canoes and very simple pirogues. He also had future plans to
develop rowing and pulling boat designs,
so keep an eye on www.kudzucraft.com.