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These Amazing Hand-Crafted Kayaks Will Have You Floating Around Malta In No Time

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The beach is a fun place to be at, and swimming is pretty cool. However we feel like something’s missing and we’d much rather float around than swim, and there’s no better way to do that than in your own cool AF wooden kayak.

The Floating Project is a local venture aimed towards building state-of-the-art hand made kayaks. It started out as a project with no deadlines, budget or experience, and now it’s officially launched in the local market. And it’s downright amazing, trust us.

Two years on these recreational kayaks made from plywood are all the rage. We honestly want one as a centrepiece in our house.

Neil and Vanessa Pace O’Shea, the couple behind this amazing project focus on hand made designer products. And it’s not just kayaks, they produce loads of amazing woodwork creations ranging from fully functional clocks to desk organisers which you can find here.

Neil and Vanessa both graduated in Interior Architecture and Design.

They both have a great love for designing and building things. “It was only until I came across a video on YouTube on how wooden kayaks are built abroad using a technique called ‘stitch and glue’ that I decided to design and build my own,” Neil told Lovin Malta.

“I thought this could be an interesting project especially since no one builds them locally,” he said. “I thought it looked really simple until I started building my first prototype. It took us two and a half years of constant testing where we built nine full scale prototypes to get to this point.”

This is a recreational kayak created using the stitch and glue technique along with Poplar plywood. It’s aim is to offer maximum comfort to the user and ample storage space in the rear compartment and optimum stability at sea.

They start every project off by cutting out a number of templates by hand from plywood. The templates are made by themselves using a 3D generated computer model. One the templates are done, they pass stainless steel wire through them in order to apply the stitching.

“We literally stitch each template together to form the shape of the kayak,” Neil and Vanessa told Lovin Malta. “Once stitches are in place, we glue them together from the interior and remove all stitches once dried. We then sand down all surfaces in preparation for a translucent epoxy resin coating.”

Once it is all dried up and sanded down, they apply the paint job, protective coat and even a UV protected varnish in order to hold off any damage from the sun’s rays.

“Along the way, a number of other features using solid wood are added such the steam bent handles,” Neil and Vanessa told Lovin Malta. “Our kayaks can be customised according to colour preferences and can even be personalised with a name just like you would with a boat.”

Tag someone who’d love to get one of these gorgeous kayaks!

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