: Thanks to all for responding - I'm going to coat the cedar with varnish as
: per Bill's recommendation. I didn't say so in my question, but the
: stringers are in a catamaran kayak that will have sealed hulls, except for
: drain plugs, of course. If (ok, when) water does get into the bilge, I
: think the wood will just soak it up as drying inside the hulls will be
: severely inhibited. My SC-1 is treated with Danish oil, and it's fine
: after a year, but it gets plenty of opportunity to dry out between uses.
: Untreated cedar is not really an option in this case.

: So I'm going to err on the side of caution and use varnish. I expect this
: boat to take a real beating, as it will be a test bed for a number of
: ideas I want to try, and will most likely be used for student design
: projects here at Maritime College. Let me tell you, the cadets really beat
: up the boats, as you can imagine.

: Bill, I haven't made it to the boathouse for a couple of days, so a plastic
: wrap test is not imminent - maybe next weekend. How close are you to
: testing your beast? Are you going to do a plastic test, or go straight to
: a final skin? Maybe we can do a stereo launch, albeit a thousand miles
: apart.

: Cheers, Carl

Hi Carl,

I'm a bit aways from launching. Finishing the pod and have the foot wells mocked up but not attached, have to figure out how/where to run the drains for them. Was going to use a commercially available rudder until I found out the one I wanted was sold out everywhere likely till spring, so I'll be making my own rudder. Really though, not "that" far to go, 2 or 3 weeks likely.

I'm going straight thru with the final cover unless your test reveals something that I want to fix . I still have to do some more testing on layups for the fabric, just not had the time yet. This is a fairly involved project.

Bill H.