International Marine published Chris Kulczycki's "Kayak Shop" in 1993. The book includes complete plans and building instructions for three wooden sea kayaks for the home builder. The boats are beautiful and seaworthy craft built from marine plywood and epoxy using the "stitch and glue" method. Last year we undertook a new edition of that book due to its continued success and the evolution of the author's kayak designs. "The New Kayak Shop" will be published in September. Now Kulczycki offers "The Canoe Shop": complete plans and building instructions for three elegant and rugged touring canoes that anyone can build - a 12-foot double paddle canoe, a 14-foot solo canoe, and a 16-foot tandem boat. With this new book Kulczycki applies the successful model of the "Kayak Shop" to a much larger potential audience. (The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association estimates that 13.6 million Americans participated in canoeing in 1998, versus 35. million for kayaking). In style and organization, "The Canoe Shop" closely resembles "The Kayak Shop".
It is a well-illustrated, user-friendly guide that walks the novice through the construction of the three boats, and simultaneously teaches boatbuilding techniques with wider application. In content it differs somewhat, as these new designs call for a different building approach. The canoes feature "lapstrake" construction, a traditional building technique in which each plank (or strake) overlaps the plank below. Lapstrake construction accentuates the lines of a boat beautifully, and many consider it the finest method of wooden boat construction. In the past, lapstrake boats had to be built in full-sized moulds and were beyond the skills of the amateur builder. Using computer-faired hull shapes, Kulczycki has been able to create boats that will assume their intended shape without a mould, and can be stitched together and bonded with epoxy like his kayaks.