The finale to Carp On The Fly On The SUP is finally up on Youtube. It took so long because I wanted to get this one just right - and I am extremely happy with it. I really wanted to try and get across how it FEELS to catch carp on the fly. How did I do?
Showing posts with label Project Standamaran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Project Standamaran. Show all posts
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Carp On The Fly On THe SUP: Event Horizon
The finale to Carp On The Fly On The SUP is finally up on Youtube. It took so long because I wanted to get this one just right - and I am extremely happy with it. I really wanted to try and get across how it FEELS to catch carp on the fly. How did I do?
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Carp On The Fly On The SUP: Episode 5
Not only was this my biggest carp of 2014 (so far), it was one of the best takes I have ever gotten, and it all went down on my Standamaran SUP.
For some details - You may notice that the carp initially starts to swim towards something that is NOT my fly (a Sculpin Helmet McLuvin). I actually believe that the fish had detected the disturbance my fly was making during the drag part of the drag and drop and was moving towards that disturbance to investigate. That is an aggressive carp!!!! Way more aggro than I am used to around here.
At the time of course, all I knew is that it was not moving towards my fly, so I popped my fly a little off the bottom and then let it drop still. The carp noticed my fly at that point and turned slightly to the left and accelerated to attack. Sight fishing? In clear water? From a SUP? To an 18lb carp? That attacks your fly like a bass? And then smokes your drag? Life doesn't get much cooler than that.
For some details - You may notice that the carp initially starts to swim towards something that is NOT my fly (a Sculpin Helmet McLuvin). I actually believe that the fish had detected the disturbance my fly was making during the drag part of the drag and drop and was moving towards that disturbance to investigate. That is an aggressive carp!!!! Way more aggro than I am used to around here.
At the time of course, all I knew is that it was not moving towards my fly, so I popped my fly a little off the bottom and then let it drop still. The carp noticed my fly at that point and turned slightly to the left and accelerated to attack. Sight fishing? In clear water? From a SUP? To an 18lb carp? That attacks your fly like a bass? And then smokes your drag? Life doesn't get much cooler than that.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Carp On The Fly On The SUP: Episode 4
In this latest video I landed one of my biggest mirror carp ever and at that time it was the biggest carp of the year. That is awesome in an of itself - but what is even cooler is that this carp was a topwater sunner in chest deep water. This was essentially an open water sunner - which are often virtually impossible on foot. I made the Standamaran SUP with the intention of being able to target carp in different scenarios - and here is one example of how it worked out.
Friday, October 10, 2014
Carp On The Fly On The SUP: Episode 3
Somebody recently asked me if Standup Paddleboards are the future of carpin. I think that may be pushing it, but they certainly open up new waters, opportunities and scenarios for catching carp on flies, and that is why I made my Standamaran SUP last winter.
In Episode 3 of "Carp On The Fly On The SUP" I hook a decent ~12 to 13lb carp tailing on a small sand flat surrounded by waste deep water that is extremely difficult to access on foot. I would have never had a shot at this fish without a SUP - and it was a really fun fish to catch.
Note: If you look carefully you can see a much much bigger fish tailing in the background that I never noticed in person because I saw this fish first and got focused. A MUCH bigger fish. I just noticed it. And yes, I cried.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Carp On The Fly On The SUP: Episode 2
In this episode of Carp On The Fly On The SUP, Chris Galvin got in on the action with a rented SUP. It was his first time ever on a SUP - let alone fly fishing from one, and he landed a total beast of an 18b carp. He also fell in in the process. For the record I was laughing with him not at him.
Monday, October 6, 2014
Carp On The Fly On The SUP: Episode 1
This September I had a brief two week window where I was catching some very good sized carp in an area of waste deep flooded brush from my Standamaran. It took me a while to get around to blogging about it because I was lucky enough to get some of my best go-pro footage yet chasing these carp and it took some time to edit the video.
This is the first episode in a series of videos about the experience:
This is the first episode in a series of videos about the experience:
As you can probably tell, it was really challenging to land these carp. I ended up using mainy 1x and cranking my drag down and sticking it to these fish from the second I hooked them. If you showed mercy - any mercy at all - they would destroy you.
For the most part I was using black leech patterns like Chubby Charsers and Martin's Carp Bitters.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Standamaran SUP Plans
I just wanted to point you towards a new page I just published that gives the full plans for the standamaran. Shortest post. Ever.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Video: Standamaran On-The-Water - Day 3
Here is a new video of me fly fishing for carp from my DIY stand up paddleboard. As a bonus you get to see a carp hand it to me at the end of the video. They carp are way back up in the trees in this lake due to high water and this one made it into the trees before I could stop it. That makes for tough landing percentages!
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Standamaran: Maiden Voyage
In my last post about the Standamaran DIY SUP project (Click here for the full history) I had declared it "good enough". After a good forty plus hours of work spread over 5 calendar months I was really anxious to try it out. Unfortunately, I awoke on my day off to the sound of 15 MPH winds caressing the trees in my back yard.
I have never been on a surf-board. I have never been on a stand-up paddleboard. I have barely been on a kayak, and I tried standing up in that for about 3 seconds before heading to shore to change my underwear. There was no way in hell I was going to try standing up on this thing the first time in 15mph winds. Dammit. I was just going to have to go carpin until the winds died down. Dammit. I hate carpin. Dammit. Sarcasm is sooooooo lost on the Internet. Dammit, I just recently watched the newest Star Trek Movie and it seems to have affected my vocabulary. Dammit Jim I'm a carper not a writer.
It was a heck of a good day to be hitting the water though. Better for carpin than standamaran-ing, that is for sure. In just a few short hours I was well on my way to a double digit day of catching carp on flies.
That put me in a bit of a pickle. Double digit days are HARD to come by in Colorado. Should I continue fishing or break out the SUP? Fortunately the clouds rolled in and saved me the impossible decision. Dark impenetrable thunder clouds. The kind that turn the water into an impenetrable mirror and render fly fishing for carp virtually impossible.
I had to dodge or sit out the occasional thunder-storm but over the next couple of hours I put the standamaran through it's paces on increasingly bigger bodies of water.
The first time I stood up on it I was a bit shaky. The first though that came to mind was: "Am I really going to be able to fly fish standing up on this thing, or did I just waste a whole lot of time and money?" It didn't take long though, and within the first 20 minutes I was worrying more about scanning the shallows for carp while paddling in the standing position than maintaining balance. Within another half hour I was practicing my cast and was easily as accurate as normal.
I can only handle "practicing" for so long though. Eventually I need real, so after a while I moved on to a small bay where I knew I had a decent chance of finding a few carp on the kind of medium depth flats I had in mind when I started this project.
As I entered the bay I switched to my push-pole. So much to learn!!! It turns out that rotating my little boat with a push pole is HARD. Ridiculously hard. It is really easy to go straight slower. It is really really easy to go straight faster. You want to change course? Hah!!! Good luck. So this was the first lesson of the day. I am either going to need some new skills or add a skeg or rudder to use to pin the back end so that I can rotate around that while poling.
It took a while, but eventually I did manage to get myself lined up and slowly drifting into the bay at the desired depth (about waste deep) and orientation (looking shallow). Shortly there-after I learned my second critical lesson - speed! It felt like I was creeping into the bay but I was actually cruising along at a pretty good clip. Much much faster than if I were wading.
When a tailing carp suddenly appeared nearly directly in my path it was shocking how fast I was moving and as a result I blew the first presentation. I blew it BAD. I can't complain about the second and third presentation though, sometimes you do everything right and you just don't get the eat. Which brings us to the third lesson - which is that I am going to be able to get much much closer to tailing carp than I was expecting. I made the third presentation at 12 feet and was within 8 feet before the carp finally noticed me and bolted for the depths.
Which brings us to the next lesson, and that is that this thing is going to work and it is going to work well. The very next carp I saw was one I would have never seen on foot in the poor lighting. It was in about 8" of water over a light sand flat at about 35 to 40 feet. This fish was cruising slowly and erratically like a shark over a reef and was in total seek and destroy mode. If I made the presentation I WAS going to get an eat. Period. Well, I nailed it. Put push-pole in armpit. Strip out 40 feet of line. Cast to 37 feet, drag to 35 feet and drop it in front of the carp's trajectory. One tiny twitch for good measure and then kill the fly completely dead. Easy money, and because of my elevated station I got to see the carp surge forward and eat the fly in such excruciatingly fine detail that I have barely slept since. The sequence is burned into my soul.
I think I learned allot about my new toy in the next couple of minutes. I am sure I did, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you what because everything turned to chaos at that point. Between getting dragged 50 feet, stowing the push-pole, getting out the net, fighting and landing the fish all while not falling in i don't remember much. What a GAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have never been on a surf-board. I have never been on a stand-up paddleboard. I have barely been on a kayak, and I tried standing up in that for about 3 seconds before heading to shore to change my underwear. There was no way in hell I was going to try standing up on this thing the first time in 15mph winds. Dammit. I was just going to have to go carpin until the winds died down. Dammit. I hate carpin. Dammit. Sarcasm is sooooooo lost on the Internet. Dammit, I just recently watched the newest Star Trek Movie and it seems to have affected my vocabulary. Dammit Jim I'm a carper not a writer.
It was a heck of a good day to be hitting the water though. Better for carpin than standamaran-ing, that is for sure. In just a few short hours I was well on my way to a double digit day of catching carp on flies.
That put me in a bit of a pickle. Double digit days are HARD to come by in Colorado. Should I continue fishing or break out the SUP? Fortunately the clouds rolled in and saved me the impossible decision. Dark impenetrable thunder clouds. The kind that turn the water into an impenetrable mirror and render fly fishing for carp virtually impossible.
I had to dodge or sit out the occasional thunder-storm but over the next couple of hours I put the standamaran through it's paces on increasingly bigger bodies of water.
The first time I stood up on it I was a bit shaky. The first though that came to mind was: "Am I really going to be able to fly fish standing up on this thing, or did I just waste a whole lot of time and money?" It didn't take long though, and within the first 20 minutes I was worrying more about scanning the shallows for carp while paddling in the standing position than maintaining balance. Within another half hour I was practicing my cast and was easily as accurate as normal.
I can only handle "practicing" for so long though. Eventually I need real, so after a while I moved on to a small bay where I knew I had a decent chance of finding a few carp on the kind of medium depth flats I had in mind when I started this project.
As I entered the bay I switched to my push-pole. So much to learn!!! It turns out that rotating my little boat with a push pole is HARD. Ridiculously hard. It is really easy to go straight slower. It is really really easy to go straight faster. You want to change course? Hah!!! Good luck. So this was the first lesson of the day. I am either going to need some new skills or add a skeg or rudder to use to pin the back end so that I can rotate around that while poling.
It took a while, but eventually I did manage to get myself lined up and slowly drifting into the bay at the desired depth (about waste deep) and orientation (looking shallow). Shortly there-after I learned my second critical lesson - speed! It felt like I was creeping into the bay but I was actually cruising along at a pretty good clip. Much much faster than if I were wading.
When a tailing carp suddenly appeared nearly directly in my path it was shocking how fast I was moving and as a result I blew the first presentation. I blew it BAD. I can't complain about the second and third presentation though, sometimes you do everything right and you just don't get the eat. Which brings us to the third lesson - which is that I am going to be able to get much much closer to tailing carp than I was expecting. I made the third presentation at 12 feet and was within 8 feet before the carp finally noticed me and bolted for the depths.
Which brings us to the next lesson, and that is that this thing is going to work and it is going to work well. The very next carp I saw was one I would have never seen on foot in the poor lighting. It was in about 8" of water over a light sand flat at about 35 to 40 feet. This fish was cruising slowly and erratically like a shark over a reef and was in total seek and destroy mode. If I made the presentation I WAS going to get an eat. Period. Well, I nailed it. Put push-pole in armpit. Strip out 40 feet of line. Cast to 37 feet, drag to 35 feet and drop it in front of the carp's trajectory. One tiny twitch for good measure and then kill the fly completely dead. Easy money, and because of my elevated station I got to see the carp surge forward and eat the fly in such excruciatingly fine detail that I have barely slept since. The sequence is burned into my soul.
I think I learned allot about my new toy in the next couple of minutes. I am sure I did, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you what because everything turned to chaos at that point. Between getting dragged 50 feet, stowing the push-pole, getting out the net, fighting and landing the fish all while not falling in i don't remember much. What a GAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Standamaran: Hot Coat
As you may know, I have a long-running project to build what I hope will be the ultimate carp on the fly floatation. The Standamaran SUP. Click here for the full history. The last we left the project I had just completed the laminate coat.
After you put down the laminate coat, the next step in surf-board building is to apply something called the hot (or fill) coat. This is a thin coat of resin (epoxy in this case) that fills in all the pits and voids in the fiberglass and smooths things out a little bit. I used a squeegee spreader to lay down the epoxy and foam brushes to smooth it. That worked OK, but between the oddly angled surfaces, out gassing issues with the foam blank and a distinct lack of patience when it came to sanding out imperfections in previous steps things got a little ugly. I am not going to dwell on the details, but suffice it to say the final product is full of enough waves and imperfections to make a professional surf-board builder curl up in the corner and cry. There are pinholes everywhere. There are drips, there are blobs. Believe me, the picture doesn't do it justice.
I don't really care though because it seems to be on target functionally. It seems structurally sound and at 26lb it came in on target for weight. Although I could clean up the appearance allot by sanding it down and applying another coat of epoxy (called a gloss coat) I decided to save the time, energy and weight and let it ride. I didn't even sand the fill coat, because ugly is, after all, a secondary concern to functionality.
Well now - that sounds done right? Except for some rigging I agree, and I finally got it loaded up on the car yesterday ready to go on it's maiden voyage. More to follow on that when I have time.
After you put down the laminate coat, the next step in surf-board building is to apply something called the hot (or fill) coat. This is a thin coat of resin (epoxy in this case) that fills in all the pits and voids in the fiberglass and smooths things out a little bit. I used a squeegee spreader to lay down the epoxy and foam brushes to smooth it. That worked OK, but between the oddly angled surfaces, out gassing issues with the foam blank and a distinct lack of patience when it came to sanding out imperfections in previous steps things got a little ugly. I am not going to dwell on the details, but suffice it to say the final product is full of enough waves and imperfections to make a professional surf-board builder curl up in the corner and cry. There are pinholes everywhere. There are drips, there are blobs. Believe me, the picture doesn't do it justice.
I don't really care though because it seems to be on target functionally. It seems structurally sound and at 26lb it came in on target for weight. Although I could clean up the appearance allot by sanding it down and applying another coat of epoxy (called a gloss coat) I decided to save the time, energy and weight and let it ride. I didn't even sand the fill coat, because ugly is, after all, a secondary concern to functionality.
Well now - that sounds done right? Except for some rigging I agree, and I finally got it loaded up on the car yesterday ready to go on it's maiden voyage. More to follow on that when I have time.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Standamaran: Laminate Coat
The laminate coat of the Standamaran SUP (click here for the full history) is pretty much done. Laminate coat is surfboard jargon for the layer of figerglass and epoxy that is laid down over the shaped foam. Traditionally, there are two more coats in surfboard building called a fill coat and gloss coat. The fill coat is at least partially structural but the gloss coat is mainly aesthetic and appearances don't really matter all that much for a fishing vessel, so I am going to skip it to save weight and time.
The laminate coat went something like this:
First I glassed the bottom of the platform with 38" wide 6 oz E glass. There is also a strip of 3" wide 8 oz fiberglass tape hidden in the radius between the platform and pontoons for re-inforcement. This was the first time I ever laid down any glass and it was a learning experience. It turned out that I shouldn't have tried to laminate up the sides of the pontoons at the same time as the platform. The section where the platform curves into the pontoons is really really hard to get the glass to lay down tight, particularly if you are pulling on it from two directions. A better option would have been to trim the glass to stop partway up the radius between the platform and pontoons and then overlap that with the laminate on the pontoons. Nevertheless it came out OK. Just OK, but I am cool with just OK if it doesn't fall apart the first time it gets within 10 feet of water.
I am adding white pigment to the epoxy so that the final board doesn't heat up and de-laminate in the sun. OK, maybe appearances does count a little, because it is also so that I am not floating around my local carp lake on a pink boat. I got street cred to maintain after all.
After that it was time to glass the top. I started by sanding down all the "laps" (short for overlap I suspect) which is the edges of the existing layers of fiberglass. The fiberglass on the top section is going to overlap these edges and you have to feather them out so that the new glass lays down smoothly over them.
While sanding I decided that I needed to clean up the front and back of the platform. When I glassed the bottom I did a pretty crummy job dealing with the curved nature of these "rails" and I wasn't going to be able to get the glass on the top to over-wrap it cleanly without some filler. A little more DAP spackling and it was good to go.
For the top laminate coat I started with one layer of 6oz on the front and back of the pontoons.
Next I will:
The laminate coat went something like this:
First I glassed the bottom of the platform with 38" wide 6 oz E glass. There is also a strip of 3" wide 8 oz fiberglass tape hidden in the radius between the platform and pontoons for re-inforcement. This was the first time I ever laid down any glass and it was a learning experience. It turned out that I shouldn't have tried to laminate up the sides of the pontoons at the same time as the platform. The section where the platform curves into the pontoons is really really hard to get the glass to lay down tight, particularly if you are pulling on it from two directions. A better option would have been to trim the glass to stop partway up the radius between the platform and pontoons and then overlap that with the laminate on the pontoons. Nevertheless it came out OK. Just OK, but I am cool with just OK if it doesn't fall apart the first time it gets within 10 feet of water.
I am adding white pigment to the epoxy so that the final board doesn't heat up and de-laminate in the sun. OK, maybe appearances does count a little, because it is also so that I am not floating around my local carp lake on a pink boat. I got street cred to maintain after all.
The next step was to laminate the bottom of the pontoons with a layer of 4oz under a layer of 6oz. The learning continued. The middle of the pontoons was hard enough since I was not glassing a flat horizontal surface. Trying to glass the middle of the pontoons at the same time as the complex curves at either end was just silly. I ended up using at least twice as much epoxy as I should have needed and also had to cut out quite a bit of jacked up glass out of both tips.
After I cut out the bad glass I had to find some way to smooth things out if I was going to be able to cover the mistake with another layer of glass. After some research I used some DAP spackling to fill. I had some laying around that is pink until it dries, then it turns white. It is easy to shape and sand, but unfortunately it is not water-proof like the rest of the extruded polystyrene foam I am using so I am going to have to make extre sure that these sections are fully sealed.
After filling and re-shaping I added a new layer of glass over the aft tips in two overlapping halves. That made it ALLOT easier to get the glass to flex to fit the rounded shape and it came out awesome. I wish I would have known what I know now the first time - it would have saved allot of work!
The repairs on the forward tip were similar in nature in that it involved several smaller overlapping pieces of fiberglass.
After that it was time to glass the top. I started by sanding down all the "laps" (short for overlap I suspect) which is the edges of the existing layers of fiberglass. The fiberglass on the top section is going to overlap these edges and you have to feather them out so that the new glass lays down smoothly over them.
While sanding I decided that I needed to clean up the front and back of the platform. When I glassed the bottom I did a pretty crummy job dealing with the curved nature of these "rails" and I wasn't going to be able to get the glass on the top to over-wrap it cleanly without some filler. A little more DAP spackling and it was good to go.
For the top laminate coat I started with one layer of 6oz on the front and back of the pontoons.
By this time I was getting much much much better at this. The top of the pontoons came out pretty good. Which is too say I didn't botch anything, didn't use twice as much epoxy as I needed and managed to lay down glass on the more complex curves at the tips without any major catastrophes.
Next I laminated the top of the platform with a layer of 6oz glass over a layer of 4oz. This was my best showing of the whole laminate coat. It came out as close to perfect as a first time glasser can expect. At least I hope it did. For all I know the whole damn thing is going to blow up the first time I stand on it. Nah - just kidding. I am pretty damn sure it is going to work and work well.
Next I will:
- Add a couple of 3" fiberglass tape re-inforcements.
- Sand all the laps flat and sand out a couple of the more blatant blemishes.
- Clean up some small bubbles in the laminate I missed the first time.
- Add a thin fill coat of epoxy.
- Figure out what the heck I am going to do about a deck traction pad.
- Figure out what the heck I am going to do about a paddle, push pole, car rack etc. etc. etc.
- Figure out what (if anything) I am going to do to add a logo.
- Hit the water.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Standamaran: Final Shaping
A quick review: The Standamaran is a catamaran style stand up paddleboard that I am building for fly fishing for carp on big flats. Click here for the full history.
The last time there was any movement on Project Standamaran it was 5 months ago!!! A fly swap, Zack's final push towards getting his Blackbelt and a totally awesome pool league (all on top of fishing and normal life of course) all conspired to leave me with little or no energy for such a big project. No big deal, you can't really laminate fiberglass in the Winter without a heated garage around here anyways.
I am going to need to finish this thing soon if it is going to be ready for prime time on some of my bigger flats though - so in the last couple of weeks I got off my butt and made some serious progress.
The first next step was to round the edges on the pontoons and glue them to the platform with Gorilla Glue.
The last time there was any movement on Project Standamaran it was 5 months ago!!! A fly swap, Zack's final push towards getting his Blackbelt and a totally awesome pool league (all on top of fishing and normal life of course) all conspired to leave me with little or no energy for such a big project. No big deal, you can't really laminate fiberglass in the Winter without a heated garage around here anyways.
I am going to need to finish this thing soon if it is going to be ready for prime time on some of my bigger flats though - so in the last couple of weeks I got off my butt and made some serious progress.
The first next step was to round the edges on the pontoons and glue them to the platform with Gorilla Glue.
Then I added some foam in order to smoothly transition between the platform and the pontoons:
Then I did the final shaping of all the edges and transitions and sanded everything with 40 or 60 grit. All I have left to do is finish filling and smoothing the most egregious dings and dents and then I am ready for fiberglass!!! It weighs 13lb without the fiberglass, I am expecting it to come out around 26lb final weight.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Standamaran: Building Pontoons
I have been making slow by stead progress on the Standamaran project. In case you missed it the plan is to build a stand-up paddle-board over the winter but to make it a stand up catamaran with two pontoons instead. That way I can fly fish from it standing up.
It started with building two 8" x 8" x 10' foam beams by gluing together 2" thick foam boards which I cut from a 4' x 8' x 2" piece of foam from Home Depot. This foam is extruded polystyrene (aka Styrofoam) and weighs about 1.5lb per cubic foot. For the glue I used 3M spray on Styrofoam adhesive.
POST PROJECT EDIT: After completion of the project I can confidently state that the 3M styrofoam adhesive was a mistake. Because the foam is completely non-porus this kind of glue NEVER completely dries in the middle of the pontoons. 5 months later when doing the fill coat the styrofoam adhesive was STILL slowly outgassing. Just enough to create dozens and dozens of tiny bubbles and pits in the hot-coat. It was more of a cosmetics issue and annoyance than a functional issue but for anybody following my lead, I would use either Gorrila Glue or Epoxy or some other kind of glue that catalyzes instead of drying. Of course, the best option would be to actually order billet foam large enough to make the pontoons out of one piece.
I then sanded the sides with 40 grit sandpaper and formed the front and back tapers. The front tips of the pontoons will have a long taper in the top view.
The aft end of the pontoons will have a shorter tear-drop taper in the top and side view.
This is what the pontoons looked like at this point. On the final product there will be a platform between the two pontoons of course.
The next step was to put a keel on the pontoons. This is at least partially in order to (hopefully) reduce drag a little but there were two other reasons. First of all I needed to reduce the volume of the pontoons a little. As it was the Standamaran was only going to draft 3" or even less. I was worried that a 3" draft wouldn't be enough for it to track well. I also wanted there to be a 3" wide strip going down the whole bottom of each pontoon that I can heavily reinforce when I glass them so that there is something strong that will hit bottom first. The pontoon on the right has had the keel shaped in, the one on the left has not (looking from aft).
The next picture shows the front from one pontoon (left) and the aft of the other (right) after shaping the keels.
Next I will radius all the hard edges, make the platform and then it will be time to glass it!
It started with building two 8" x 8" x 10' foam beams by gluing together 2" thick foam boards which I cut from a 4' x 8' x 2" piece of foam from Home Depot. This foam is extruded polystyrene (aka Styrofoam) and weighs about 1.5lb per cubic foot. For the glue I used 3M spray on Styrofoam adhesive.
POST PROJECT EDIT: After completion of the project I can confidently state that the 3M styrofoam adhesive was a mistake. Because the foam is completely non-porus this kind of glue NEVER completely dries in the middle of the pontoons. 5 months later when doing the fill coat the styrofoam adhesive was STILL slowly outgassing. Just enough to create dozens and dozens of tiny bubbles and pits in the hot-coat. It was more of a cosmetics issue and annoyance than a functional issue but for anybody following my lead, I would use either Gorrila Glue or Epoxy or some other kind of glue that catalyzes instead of drying. Of course, the best option would be to actually order billet foam large enough to make the pontoons out of one piece.
I then sanded the sides with 40 grit sandpaper and formed the front and back tapers. The front tips of the pontoons will have a long taper in the top view.
The aft end of the pontoons will have a shorter tear-drop taper in the top and side view.
This is what the pontoons looked like at this point. On the final product there will be a platform between the two pontoons of course.
The next step was to put a keel on the pontoons. This is at least partially in order to (hopefully) reduce drag a little but there were two other reasons. First of all I needed to reduce the volume of the pontoons a little. As it was the Standamaran was only going to draft 3" or even less. I was worried that a 3" draft wouldn't be enough for it to track well. I also wanted there to be a 3" wide strip going down the whole bottom of each pontoon that I can heavily reinforce when I glass them so that there is something strong that will hit bottom first. The pontoon on the right has had the keel shaped in, the one on the left has not (looking from aft).
The next picture shows the front from one pontoon (left) and the aft of the other (right) after shaping the keels.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Standamaran: My Plan for World Stand Up Paddle Board Domination
UPDATE: You can view the full instructions for my finished standup catamaran here. You can view all the posts relating to the Project Standamaran here.
There has been some buzz in the fly fishing for carp community that stand up paddle-boards are the future. The easy-transport-self-powered stand-up watercraft best suited to carp and other flats species. After some research I buy it and am going to join the SUP craze this spring.
Actually though, after some research and thought I think it is very likely (certain) that the best option is actually a Standamaran - or stand up catamaran. Something like this:
Of course, this gentleman made his skinnier than need be as well - which makes sense because his catamaran at 29" would still be much more stable than a very wide 32" SUP but I want all the stability I can get. I also question the long term wisdom of his hollow design. While it looks super-duper easy to build up the pontoons, one pinhole leak and all of your effort is wasted.
So this winter I am going to build this (click to enlarge):
It should take about 300 bucks and more time than I have. Much much more time than I have.
There has been some buzz in the fly fishing for carp community that stand up paddle-boards are the future. The easy-transport-self-powered stand-up watercraft best suited to carp and other flats species. After some research I buy it and am going to join the SUP craze this spring.
Actually though, after some research and thought I think it is very likely (certain) that the best option is actually a Standamaran - or stand up catamaran. Something like this:
The physics are clear (I apologize for going all rocket scientist) - a catamaran design is going to move the bouyancy to the edges and have orders of magnitude more stability than a normal SUP with little or no loss in ease of paddling. There is probably a substantial loss in maneuverability which we probably usually don't really care about. Stability is the key though, and critical for stand-up fly fishing flotation.
Now, there are problems with what I have shown above. First of all the Standamaran in the video costs thousands of dollars, is made of carbon fiber and is designed for racing. As such it is relatively skinny and does not have the maximum stability you would want for fly fishing.
The only recourse is to build one your own. Something like the instructible at this link would do the trick nicely.
Of course, this gentleman made his skinnier than need be as well - which makes sense because his catamaran at 29" would still be much more stable than a very wide 32" SUP but I want all the stability I can get. I also question the long term wisdom of his hollow design. While it looks super-duper easy to build up the pontoons, one pinhole leak and all of your effort is wasted.
So this winter I am going to build this (click to enlarge):
It should take about 300 bucks and more time than I have. Much much more time than I have.
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