The Woodenwidget Foldak is a small folding canoe. It is 12 feet long (3.75m). Two
sets of hinged hoops swing out to create a shapely but tough and lightweight
canoe designed to work with either a single paddle or a double kayak paddle.
The Foldak is very quick to assemble. Simply lift out the sides, drop the
two hinged floors and lock in place. All the pieces remain attached to the
canoe so there are no pieces to get lost.
The Foldak can be assembled or collapsed in just one minute.
Because the floors are above the bottom of the boat, you never get a wet
bottom. Handles are incorporated into the floors which makes it a doddle to
move about with either one person or two. Foldak is a light little boat yet surprisingly capable
and tough.
Canoes are generally very tippy but the Foldak has quite a square
shape so is surprisingly stable for a folding canoe. Having
the fold down floors low down in the dinghy also means that your weight is
down low which adds enormously to the boat's stability.
The Foldak is an easy boat to build consisting of a central
keel assembly, a pair of drop down floors and four laminated wooden hoops.
This structure is then covered with a strong PVC cloth. Don't be daunted by
this construction method. Laminating wood is not difficult and in fact is lot of fun
and is also very satisfying.
The comprehensive illustrated plans guide you every single step of the way
so even if you never done anything like this before you will still be able
to build your own Foldak canoe.
Everything you will need has been listed
and there are many links to lots of suppliers should you not be able to find
what you need locally.
All of the ingredients that make up a Foldak are readily available
and inexpensive. A Foldak could be built from
about 300 Euros but this figure
can go either way depending on the quality of the materials you buy and
where you get them.
The Foldak folds to just 150 mm (6") and will easily fit on any roof rack.
Weighing from 20 kilos it's also light enough to be easy to move about if
you need to.
If you want an easy to build and pretty little folding canoe then maybe the Foldak is the boat for you.
Watch some videos
here
