Rob,

Build your boat as well as you can and go paddle it for a while. After the first season try and find all the less than perfect areas you were worried about...bet ya can't find most of them, and the ones you can find are not a big deal anymore.

Here is an excerpt from a trip report that I wrote on the Trips bulletin board about my last trip:

At one point during the afternoon I landed on a small island to stretch my back and legs and did some fishing from shore and a little looking around on the island. I sat on the rocks just above where I had pulled my kayak up on shore. Prior to the trip I had put a sacrificial layer of duct tape on the bow and stern of the Baidarka because I knew some of the launchings and landings during the trip would be on rock. In the crystal clear water I could see the tape hanging off the bottom of the boat in shreds. All the launchings and landings had been on granite except for our one sandy beach campsite on Day 5. I had to snicker at myself, just a month or so ago I had been concerned because I had a few small runs in the varnish on the hull. Now there was no doubt in my mind that there was little or no varnish left on the hull and I would be lucky to have any fibreglass left. Oh well, I built the boat to paddle not to look at. Although I had brought 'glass cloth, resin and hardener to make emergency repairs, I vowed not to look at the bottom of the boat till the trip was over, or I holed the boat, and I would do a good job of the repairs at home in a controlled environment. Runs in the varnish...sheesh! I slid the boat back into the water and jumped in.

Not to worry though here is a later excerpt from after the trip was over!

Now that the kayak was empty it was time to roll it over to check the damage I had done to the craft I had spent so many hours building. As I turned it over I couldn't believe my eyes, sure there were scrapes and scratches but they had barely touched the surface. I had expected gouges through the fibreglass and into the wood core after some of the grinding I had done on the granite. Truly amazing, I think Nick and the boys might be onto something with this wood and fibreglass construction idea

Enjoy the building process. Paddling is more fun than obsessing!!!

Ken

PS Sorry this reply is so late, I'm a little behind in my reading!

: Last weekend I had the pleasure to meet (again) Nick at the MATB. I said hi
: and immediately told him I had a guillemot 17 that I was filling cracks
: and crevices before glassing. His first words to me: "Don't
: Obsess".

: So, taking that advice to heart, last night (the first of many late ones I'm
: sure) I seal coated my deck. My mantra: "don't obsess, don't
: obsess". So all my mistakes are now memorialized under a seal coat.
: Not sure whether I should lay the fiberglass on the deck now, separate the
: boat and work on the hull, or if I should separate now and glass the deck
: after the hull is done per the book. It seems like it would be easy to
: glass the deck now, and make it stronger before I separate it.

: I'll try and post a pic. . . first time. If you want and the pic doesn;t
: work, you can do the PhotoIsland thing. login: pbkayaks password: kayak
: album: guillemot