Building Kayaks

I'm spending time in the workshop building controllers, electrical kits and kayaks to fill current orders before Lynnette shows up today for two weeks of fishing. She comes up from the Bay Area as often as she can get away. It is amazing how tolerant her husband is. I hear he buys more socks when he runs out. He doesn't seem to have learned the art of washing clothes. Maybe he wants her to feel important. LOL

I have spent a few days out in the water tuna and salmon fishing. I use my ocean-going boat to go out. No, I'm not nuts enough to use my Kingfisher in the ocean! My daughter and I managed to bring in approximately 500 lbs of tuna. It is rare that the tuna come in close enough for the sport fisherman to warrant going out to get them. They were as close 18 miles this year. Lynnette and I wore ourselves to a frazzel pulling in tuna after tuna. Cleaning them takes almost as much time as catching them. We got so good at cleaning that others in the fishing station were asking us for advice; which took more time! We dragged ourselves home to dump the canning job on Karen and Lynnette. I tried to catch up with web work along with snoozing in my chair. I beleive Karen and Lynnette canned 28 cases of tuna! They had to resort to using both 1/2 pint jars along with pints as everyone in town was buying the 1/2 pints. Friends brought over 12 cases from Medford. We have enough jars now for more tuna! We (well the girls) also froze up some steaks that they marinated in Teryaki and wrapped in bacon and now they only have to remove from the freezer and Barbeque. I did the smoking of several pieces. Now, it is a challenge to judge whether we like smoked tuna over smoked salmon.

Brookings is short on large salmon. We are catching 15-20 lb silvers and there seems to be plenty to catch. The water will be like a pond for the rest of the week, so Lynnette and I will catch all we can. I'm hoping for 30-40 pounders. Karen says that the smaller salmon taste better. I like to think that my limited tags will be used for largest possible! More for the buck, I guess.

I've been searching the web for the best buys in parts I need for the kayak building. I found some springs that were phased out by my former source. I actually got them for less money and will pass along the good price for my customers. I'm in search of better sources for those very small, but important parts. The component that I read about and lust for, isn't available from anyone that I can find. Karen was a sales rep for components and remembers her engineering department lying through their teeth about what was going to be available, so maybe my part is still only a thought in some engineer's mind. I wonder.

I designed a nice cart to haul the Kingfisher kayak around. We are going to the Port Townsend, WA Wooden Boat Festival Sept. 7-8-9 . I was thinking I may have to carry a 55 lb kayak further than up a levy or across a beach so I made a pretty niffty cart. We will be offering it for sale on our website soon.

If you have any questions or comments be sure to contact me at winchuckriver@charter.net or call our toll free number: 877-572-6451. If we don't answer, I'll get back to you right away.