: What can I say, crazy builders like you and me know how to have a good
: time... you have to keep the brain happy or the whole system breaks
: down!! The other projects are kayak stands, a hollow Greenland paddle and
: the coveted homemade footpump I'm not hyping the stands and the paddle
: yet because they might not work out and, I can't stand any more public
: humiliation
: I'll have the boat done before summer. Expect to hear a lot of noise from
: this corner on the pump and the stands in the next few weeks.

Since we've spoken last, I got my inspiration back (and creativity) and currently have about a dozen projects going on. As you know, I have a lot of time on my hands, and things have just gone crazy. I built a set of fairly lightweight stands from scrap wood I found at Ikea in Canada and I've built a livingrooom stand which will hold up to 4 kayaks and can be used as a workstation. Other projects include the Cirrus (backburner) and 2 SOF's (non-traditional, possibly stripped deck hybrids) and numerous small projects. I'll get some pictures up in the next week to see what you think.
As for posting the outcome of any of my projects, I'll pass on all of my successes as well as failures so that others can learn from my screw-ups (I really don't mind the public humiliation), and I think that you need to also. Your inventions have a tremendous amount of potential and when things don't go as planned, we all learn things that we could not have known otherwise. And we can help you get through those difficult times with ideas of our own.
Keep the ideas rolling and bounce them around in this little box we call a computer and I promise you that the praise you will reap from your successes will far outweigh anything negative. Keep up the good work, I look forward to seeing/reading about your creations.
SMF
By the way I broke one of my Greenland paddles on Saturday while playing out at Sandy Point. Oh well, I didn't really like that one anyway, wrong grain pattern in the cedar (grain runout galore), but it sure was lightweight and a joy to paddle with. It also gave me the opportunity to try out my spare canoe paddle to get back to the dock.