Nice canoe!
You might find it more stable than it first felt. I have a little plywood canoe that was patterened after a swamp canoe. You are supposed to be able to put a board across the top and fish. It took some time to get used to that, I felt like I was going to capsize all the time, but now I can even paddle or pole standing up (the way you are supposed to do it in the swamp).
Have fun paddling! :)
Foster

: Finally launched my skin-on-frame canoe Sunday afternoon (I built
: the frame back in September). Turned out to be a lot more tender
: than I had imagined trying to paddle while kneeling (and I knew
: it would be a handful!) but its manageable when sitting on the
: floor. Its quite a relaxing boat to paddle on calm water, but
: rapids and speed boat wakes will take more getting used to
: before I'm terribly comfortable in it. I didn't take a double
: paddle with me on Sunday, but a kayak paddle should make it a
: lot more swift and very entertaining in rapids.

: The frame is western red cedar with oak ribs, and the completed
: canoe weighs 22 lbs. The skin is 8 oz. polyester coated with
: water-based polyurea (which seems to be working out very nicely
: so far). I tinted the polyurea with Transtint dye, and left the
: last four coats clear to help give it some UV/fade resistance,
: but I expect it to change color over time since the Transtint
: dye is not particularly fade resistant. The birch bark look was
: unintentional - I had intended to make it look like animal hide
: - but it seems fitting.