Thanks for all of the interesting comments and ideas about the weight of my boat. First I'll mention that I finally put it in the water yesterday in Santa Cruz. I was very happy with it. Seems reasonably fast, tracks well, and is very easy to turn. I also got a lot of compliments on it. Now I'm off to British Columbia for four weeks of sea trials.

In response to the theories about why my boat came out so heavy, here are the details of how I built the boat. As a first time builder, I'm sure I used too much epoxy, but I didn't need more than the 2.25 gallons that CLC sells. I did glass the bottom of the hull, so there is some extra weight. Didn't do end pours, but taped the inside of the bow and stern. By the way, what is the reason for the end pours? I did not build from a kit, but I did use okoume plywood. Mine came from France and was made by a company called Joubert? I wonder about weight variation in plywood. I made my shear clamps out of doug fir and they were heavy. Built front and rear hatches per the CLC plans. So there it is. According to the posts, some people built 44 pound boats pretty much the same way I got my 56 pounder. I'd like to try building another boat and really concentrate on keeping the weight down, but in the meantime i'm going to concentrate on enjoying the one I just built!!

> Weighed my Chesapeake 17 today prior to painting. Weighed myself
> first, then put the boat on my shoulder and weighed both of us. Sorry
> to say that we both were a little overweight, that is if I choose
> to believe those insurance industry tables and those numbers from
> CLC. My boat seems to be about 27 percent over and I'm about 17 percent
> from my ideal. I have a good idea what the problem is in my case,
> but I'm a bit mystified about my boat. I am especially curious about
> why the Pygmy boats seem to come in very close to their quoted weights,
> about 16 pounds lighter than my boat.

>