: Finally got construction underway - its only taken me a year to get this far.
: Six months+ to design it, another 6 months to start building it. Made a
: lot of progress in the last couple of days now that the honey-do list has
: been worked down to a manageable state. It helped that I had all the
: components cut and ready to go. Fooled around with trying to lash it like
: I did on the last build, but got fed up with how long each lashing was
: taking and just epoxied the cross sections in place.

: I'm still not sure I can actually get in it, will know for sure tomorrow when
: I remove the frame from the strong back. The top of the coaming is only
: 11" from the keel, 7" at the backrest - probably wouldn't be an
: issue if the coaming wasn't 16" x 20"! The contingency plan is
: to make a solid wood masik to replace the top half of the #3 cross section
: if I can't get into it. I mocked up the cockpit during the design phase,
: and by measurements I SHOULD be able to fit, but man it looks like a tight
: squeeze...

: This is the kayak that started out as a 5' long 6x6 redwood beam, milled and
: scarfed into the necessary components. Everything except the epoxy and
: skin coating will be found/savaged/scrap material... Next time I build a
: kayak it will be from full length lumber. The scarfing has worked fine, it
: just took WAY too much time to cut and glue up the stringers - more time
: than its going to take to assemble the frame.

Unless you've got really big feet, shouldn't be a problem getting in the boat. Balancing while getting in always is an issue though. You'll need to sit on the rear deck to slide your feet into the boat, sitting on top of the boat while floating takes some balance

Bill H.