Day... whatever... I think 21

It floats. :-)

There is proof below. Tonight, just at dusk, we found some sheltered water and a beach to launch from. It paddles just fine. Anyway, I a getting ahead of myself.

Over the last 3 or so days I have been busy, mainly making a paddle. The greenland style paddle is just so easy to make even with a modicum of tools, it is a wonder why I made such a hash of my first one. But I did. And I made a complete mess of an innocent piece of ceder. I wont make that mistake again.

My idea was sound enough. Laminate three pieces of ceder together to increase the strength of the paddle and decrease the chance of a single point failure. Had I executed it, as I dreamt, then all would have been fine and dandy. However I made a major mistake with my choice of glue. I used a thing called "Super Grip", a polyurethane glue that is supposed to be 100% water proof. The problem I had was that the glue was faulty in that on opening I found that it had formed a hard crust inside the tube. I should have stopped there. But no, I broke the had crust with a nail and proceeded to try to gun the rest of the glue out. But it was very thick, would not spread easily, when almost immediately lumpy on spreading and was very hard to work with. As a consequence the timbers bonded, but with a huge gap (partly filled with glue, partly just air.) I didn't take photos cuz I was to embarrassed. Cutting out and planing down were also a but trying. However, after much machining I ended up with something like a greenland paddle.

I have also been experimenting with how to add decklines without creating any holes in the skin. I have decided that I will make all decklines and their holders from nylon or polyester rope, The holders will be glued to backing sheets of pre-painted polyester cloth, which in turn, will be glued to the skin. My 'experiments' indicate that this will work, and it it doesn't then I can still go to Plan B. It will look a little ugly but then I look a bit ugly as well, so matters little.

Bought a spray skirt - Rasdek Rhino. I had built the coaming to the pattern that the Rasdek people had given me and wowowowoow, it fitted very well.

Also bought roof racks for the car. Danged expensive but it is hard to transport a kayak without them. I didn't buy a kayak holder preferring to rope the kayak onto the roof racks. It worked very well.

Then I got it in the water. The kayak feels just fabulous to paddle. I have not the experience to know if it is fast or slow, but it is definitely responsive. It has no rudder or skeg but tracks well. Mind you, the only thing I was battling was a fast tidal current.

I was out on the water for about 25 minutes. Over that time I noticed no appreciable water on the inside, which was nice. I did notice a damp feel to the skin however but am unsure it that is seepage or like a condensation. There was no running water inside.

I am absolutely delighted with this whole project. It took 21 days from building the strongback to sitting on the water. I could be wrong but I am thinking that I could, just with better organisation, get that down to 10 days. ummmmmmmm. :-)