Today I put the last fillet on the hip braces and my Chesapeake 17 kit is built. It looks better than I ever thought it would, and that’s before painting and varnishing. In a few weeks, when the warm weather returns to this part of the world, it will be passed through the basement window, onto the neighbours shed roof and manoeuvred round to the front porch. There I will sand, paint and varnish it, and paddle it as soon as the water is soft. Can’t wait to see how it performs. This was my millennium project (started at Christmas) and also my recognition of officially becoming a senior citizen It got finished some months before the second item so I guess I will have to make another boat for that significant event. I’ll try a stripper next. I found that the letters and encouragement in this newsgroup helped enormously, both to make up my mind to build and with ideas during the process. My God, the laundry room looks tidy now with just the boat sitting on its sawhorses and no working litter. If I can just get the epoxy lumps off the Maytag, it will look almost presentable.