Before becoming one of the most popular types of watercraft in North America, kayaks enjoyed thousands of years of evolution among the ice floes above the Arctic Circle. The Inuits and other indigenous Arctic cultures relied upon their sealskin covered kayaks for hunting and travel in cold, dangerous waters, and modern kayak designers can do little to improve upon the hull shapes they developed.
Today, recreational kayaks are loosely divided into two categories: white water kayaks and sea kayaks. Sea kayaks are meant for cruising on open waters. They are long and narrow for speed and for straight steering in wind and waves, and they can carry a good load of camping gear for trips of a month or more.
The Chesapeake 17 sea kayak is produced by Chesapeake Light Craft for construction by amateur builders. While easy to build from a kit or plans, the Chesapeake 17 is a high-performance boat, combining the crisp handling and good looks of the hard-chined, V-bottomed West Greenland style hull design with the long waterline and high volume of modern expedition sea kayaks. The standard Chesapeake 17 is built of African mahogany plywood fastened together with epoxy glue, with a sheathing of fiberglass cloth set in epoxy.
Chesapeake Light Craft is one of the largest manufacturers of kayak kits in the world and the Chesapeake 17 is their most popular model. Thousands of Chesapeake 17s have been assembled by amateur boat builders from plans and kits since the design was introduced in 1996.
