Frej – Niklas Gunnarsson

Friday, June 2, 2017, 0 comments

A new Frej in Dalarna, Sweden, launched a couple of weeks ago – but after an intense period of illustration work, I am lagging behind with a lot of other things. But, at last, here is Niklas Gunnarsson's nicely constructed Frej, along with a superb building log, with lots of photos and interesting solutions (text in Swedish, but with an attached translation service.

"Another Frej has seen the light of day up in Falun, lake Runn in mid-Sweden! The maiden voyage was of course fantastic - she’s stable in the water, easily turned and tracks really well when the skeg is used. It’s my first build and thus I’ve probably used a lot more epoxy resin than necessary, and I’ve also made several advanced features such as footrest, waterproof drybag hatches and a foam core seat. It all adds up, and the total weight is probably around 22-23kgs, if not more. I was hoping for sub 20kgs but that’ll be for the next build. Will it be another Frej or maybe a weight optimized Njord…?

A few last details are missing – some bungee cords for the decking where the paddle (carbon fiber Greenland paddle is in the making) can rest, and the decals.

All in all a real fun build! You can follow all my beginner mistakes on the build blog at https://niglaskajak.wordpress.com/ 

Thanks Björn for a great kayak design! 

/Niklas"