Build Your Own Greenland Style Sea Kayak

Using the Stitch and Glue Method, Most Can Build a Sea Kayak in Under 100 Hours

Often called a kayak so attuned to its environment, so highly evolved, so sturdily elegant as to be beyond improvement, the Greenland kayak is also considered by many to be the pinnacle of design for sleekness, speed, beauty.

Almost flat bottomed, usually hardchined, always rudderless, Greenland kayaks are easy to roll and require less effort to paddle than modern kayaks. Their hulls are light and have excellent seagoing qualities. To many their sleek lines, low swooping profile and shearlines embody seaworthiness and grace. Yet Greenland kayaks were designed for conditions and tasks no less brutal than hunting walruses and seals and transporting them home.

Greenland kayaks have a lot in common with the clipper ships of the 19th and early 20th-centuries and with Gloucester fishing schooners --- two classes of fast yet delicate, beautiful yet no-nonsense working craft whose combination of speed, beauty, and raw utility are matched in modern era only by offshore racing multihulls.

They are also, whether kit, custom, or scratch-built, a good choice for a paddler or first-timer looking to build a fast kayak with decent cargo room. Many consider them the pinnacle of kayak design for their sleekness, speed, and aesthetics - timeless qualities that always appeal.

They typical Greenland kayak is low-volume. Originally built by hunters who could not compromise on speed and seaworthiness, the original kayak had to serve as both hunting tool and working boat viable in waters far removed from hope of rescue. Their light weight, whether wood or skin built, is useful for the quarter to half-mile portages so common to hunting above the Arctic Circle.

It's the Greenland kayak's modern adaptation, however, which most appeals: it's an increasingly popular choice among paddlers who appreciate rolling performance and the premium a Greenland kayak places upon a less effortful, more versatile paddling style.