: Beautiful! I love the upward sweep at the stems! Geeze, that must have been
: difficult, and great job on the finish! The maple leaf accents are a very
: nice and original touch. Your review of handling chararacteristics is very
: useful to anyone who might be interested in this design! Thanks for
: sharing, oh, and great photographic documentary of the build!

Hey, Bill. The upward sweep at the ends was fairly easy to manage. I took great care to drill the holes and tighten the wires to avoid breaking the slim ends of the panels. All in all, the kayak went together with the usual care and dillegence? (spell check please) that I put into my projects. I am always careful to align panels...less careful on the final finish work since I know the nice finish won't last long with me handing the kayak. I haven't taken this kayak on the river yet...I worry that not having a finished hatch could get me into rather cold water. I hope to start working on the hatch next week. I haven't worked on it since the preliminary launch because the weather has been perfect for lake paddling and, of course, I have been paddling. I guess the next logical step for me now is to build the strip version of this kayak. I have refused to let Linda try out the kayak because of what happened when I let her try out my Turbo CF wing paddle: she won't let me use the wing paddle any more. I ain't letting her in the know about the NH yet...

Robert N Pruden