Today on my fifty-fifth birthday I took the new Coho to the water on Lake Natoma in Sacramento. It's in Pygmy's "paddle-for-a-month-and-let-the-epoxy-cure" phase. Not done, but able to be paddled by an impatient builder. Foot pegs aren't in yet, deck rigging isn't installed, and neither hatches nor bulkheads are in place. I'm using a sea sock for a while to see whether I like it. Several observations:

The boat is beautiful. It drew comments everywhere I stopped, and we found ourselves in conversation about the boat as we put it in and as we took it out. I see what people mean about increasing your time to get on the water...

Epoxy drips really show up when the boat is on the roof rack of the Suburban in bright sunlight. I was embarrassed about the amateurish sloppiness they showed, but I also realized that most of the people who saw the boat weren't seeing them.

My experience is limited to plastic boats so far, but this boat paddles beautifully. My wife thought so too. Good thing I'm starting on an Arctic Tern, because Barb's admiration for this boat was clinched by the opportunity to paddle it.

Right now the boat is way more capable than I am, but it's a strong incentive to gain experience and keep building skills.

For what it's worth, my experience with Pygmy has been 100% positive -- they've been helpful on the phone, and they immediately replaced a missing panel and the ones adjacent to it, so the grain would match. I'd love to keep on building Pygmy boats, but I eventually want to do more than build stitch-and-glue kits.

Thanks to all of you for your tips, stories, encouragement, and advice, even when you didn't know I was listening. Thanks especially to Nick, who made this all possible... Mike