Jared Ruehr

I like boats, especially ones that are human or wind powered. However, I don't quite have the space in my apartment to store even a small traditional kayak. Several companies sell folding kayaks made of corrugated plastic or polycarbonate. However these existing fold up boats can cost upwards of $1200, more than I was willing to pay. My solution was to design and build a boat which I could disassemble into a flat pack shape with parts I could easily acquire in a trip to the Home Depot.

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Inspiration for the design came from a video I watched of the construction of an elm bark canoe. Except instead of elm bark, I would use a single sheet of corrugated plastic, similarly to the Coru Kayak. I chose to build a simple wood frame for my boat to compensate for the thinner plastic that was available at the hardware store. I first built a paper scale model to figure out where the folds needed to go and to check my back of the envelope geometry calculations. I glued and screwed the frame together (I later learned that wood glue is water soluble) and creased the plastic where I needed the folds to go. I then drilled holes in the plastic and the wood frame so that I could thread a rope through the pieces to assemble the boat.

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On its maiden voyage the folding boat proved to be sea worthy! The plastic did not leak at the creases and the wooden frame helped encourage it to fold in mostly the right places. My biggest complaint was that it was a bit tippy, I think that adding some ballast to the bottom should help prevent that in the future. Other changes I would like to make moving forward are to add a seat and crease the bow and the stern to help it slice through the water more easily.

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Skills Exhibited:

• Model Fabrication.

• Wood Working.