Dad had just finished building Kia Loa, so there was the boat shed standing empty and me with a Popular Mechanics magazine that had an article about how to build the 12' Canvasback kayak. I ordered the plans (or maybe my mother did), bought some wood, or found some left-overs, and built that kayak. My birthday present that year was a wodge of canvas and a box of copper tacks for putting the skin on.
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| Photo from Popular Mechanics |
I spent hours paddling that boat, through all of the lagoons of the Toronto Islands. One of my great thrills was going out the Eastern Gap in a strong Easterly (this was before the Outer Harbour was built) and surfing down to Gibraltar Point. I had no spray skirt, no practice at dumping or re-boarding, and my kapok life bumps were behind my seat-back.
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