Avasisartoq

The kayak I am trying to, more or less, replicate (Danish National Museum Lc 43) belongs, as the one above, to the type H.C Petersen called avasisartoq, which Harvey Golden considered largely equivalente to his Type IV in Kayaks of Greenland. Distinctive of the type are the gracefully raised ends. In my opinion, they contribute significantly to the elegance and beauty of the finer examples of the type which could well be the Greenlandic kayaks I find most aesthetically pleasing.


Of course, the raised ends have some consequences for the construction. You would either need rather wide boards to carve the gunwales in one piece or, as I did, you could glue pieces at both ends, where you need the extra wood. The pic above shows the additions for the stern.

And that's the finished product, bow...


...and stern


Besides adding wood, I've removed some too and thus shaping of the gunwales' profile has been completed. I still need to bevel their inner edges so the skin can lay flat on the resulting surfaces. but that will have to wait for a few days: tomorrow I leave for a long (really long) weekend of paddling in Santander, in the Bay of Biscay (might not see comments to this entry for some time).

And I will be using a new kayak...