I purchased a North Star Landick 2 solo racing canoe in August of 2024. I’ve done a few races with it and made a few improvements. One of the first things I did was add a rudder. Then in October of 2025 paddled the annual Race To The Dome. My friend, Dana, has the only other Landick 2 I’m aware of in Missouri. He signed up for the same race and it was on. We would find out who was the better paddler this day having the same equipment. While Dana doesn’t have a rudder and doesn’t seem to want one, he did have an amazing home made spray skirt to help with the wind on his boat. It was a close race that was decided by about 5 minutes but that isn’t the focus of this story.
At the finish line, Dana told me that this was the last big race of the season. He handed me his newly made spray skirt that was only used one time previously and said, copy it. I went shopping and didn’t find the material I was looking for. Through the powers of the Internet, I found and ordered some Rip Stop Nylon. Below is my wife (Danelle) and my supervising cat (Gimli) working on cutting out the shape I needed for my own spray skirt for my boat.
The one on the right is the front and the larger one on the left with the cat is the rear spray skirt. This was going to fin the material I ordered (about $45 with the corresponding thread). And I nervously started cutting.
The theme of the measuring, cutting, and sewing portion of this project is “just let me do it” as spoken by my wife. While she was incredibly patient while I cut the pattern, it finished with her sitting (way more flexible than me) fixing what I was nervous to do.
If you’re reading this to learn how to make your own spray skirt, there probably isn’t nearly enough detail here to help you. Post a comment and I can likely clarify something. But you may have noticed that she is cutting much longer than the template spray skirt provided. It turns out that rip stop nylon is incredibly thin. The plan was to fold in some interfacing to make the Velcro areas stronger. Interfacing is an intermediate fabric that goes inside the fabric you want to be seen to give it structure. The interfacing we ordered came in a roll and I had to mark and cut it to meet our needs. Below you can see me marking the interfacing strips before I cut it.
I should add that all the good ideas here are Danelle’s and all the bad stuff is my fault. Step one was to fold the rip stop nylon with the interfacing inside and sew it together.
I’ve never used a sewing machine before this project. It felt like black magic setting it up. I used the pedal with the slowest speed to minimize my mistakes and protect my clumsy fingers. Danelle would come in to check on me and her machine before walking away so she didn’t comment. Okay she was crazy helpful setting everything up and making sure I wasn’t getting too far off course. Did I mention off course, here are a few of my fabulous mistakes…
What might be most frustrating to me was Danelle’s ability to just make it work with minimal troubles.
Eventually Velcro was sewn on and then we had to wait for good weather to put the matching strip on the boat. Like too many projects, this one lost momentum for months before resuming. Finally on a nice day, we taped off where Velcro should be glued on the hull.
Finally I purchased sand paper sponges and went to town scratching up my hull where the attachments would be made.
We used the canoe trailer to keep ourselves off the ground. Once sanded, I came back with acetone to remove any debris, making sure it was as clean as possible. 
Now it was time for contact cement. I painted it on the hull with the tape as a guide and again on the strips of Velcro, then the wait 15 minutes… I was fortunate to have Danelle and Sonora there to experience this with me.
with all the strips applied, we removed the tape. Then a few nights later, the first test on our weekly 5k.
While would consider this a rousing success, there is room for improvement. The rear cover is a few inches short. This may be a boon as it would leave room for running hydration hoses up to me. I’m impressed and thankful to Dana who provided the template and the idea I (Really my wife) could make my own spray skirt.
I think I’m more likely to try modifying my boat after completing this project!
Hogan Haake