Author: Mike

She performs really well. Really stable and great primary stability which is what I was really looking for over the Jem Sabalo I built. We now have the Woodbie, the Sabalo, an old Hobie Oasis Tandem, an inflatable Advanced Elements Tandem and inflatable SUP. I’d say the Sabalo is the fastest overall with the highest … Read More “Woodbie in Action” »

Yes, Taalak has been the name I’ve been calling this kayak the whole time, but now that she’s done, I feel like calling her the Woodbie. Really happy with how it turned out. Looks great. Went with the Maroske fittings again to have nice clean deck fittings. The EVA foam mat looks great and was … Read More “Completed Kayak – Naming her the Woodbie” »

Sanded down and painting. I feel like I learned a lot about this area from the previous build. I relied a lot more on the random orbital sander this time. I also am using 3M blue tape and pressing down with a plastic card. I had a lot of bleed through last time.

With completed Hobie Guardian and Mirage drive wells, it was time to permanently glue in the framing and cockpit as well as storage bins. I went with 2 shallow storage areas what will mainly be for gear tracks, as well as a really deep bin on the left, and a shallower bin on the right … Read More “Cockpit and storage areas” »

Well, here was the next big leap of faith after cutting out the hull panels. Cutting a hole for the Hobie Mirage Drive! Worked up enough guts to get this done, while you’re at it, you might as well cut a hole for the Hobie Guardian. For those not familiar with Hobies, the Mirage drive … Read More “Cutting a huge hole in the hull” »

I’m following the assembly method from the Jem Sabalo as the method for building the Ta’al doesn’t really work for what I’m trying to do. So I’ve flipped over the kayak with the supports in. Next steps are to start filleting the panels together so that we can get the stitches removed. There is tape … Read More “Hull turned over for fiberglassing” »

Panels 5/6 for the hull never existed in any form on the Ta’al. To make these, I actually relied once again on the internal frames. I wasn’t 100% sure of the shape of the ends, althought I had a pretty good idea. I elected to cut out some cardboard, tape it to the hull and … Read More “Complete Hull stitched together” »

These panels were designed based on the original Ta’al SUP. I stretched them along with the bottom panels, than I went to figure out how the internal framing needed to be modified. After studying various other fishing Kayaks I figured out how much these panels would have to go and I used the internal panels … Read More “Panels 3/4 Stitched” »