: Hi Everyone, Thank you, Thank you one and all for your great
: response, what a wonderful forum. O K I will take everyone's
: advise
: and use a temporary skeg and also promise to take G P lessons( very
: hard to find someone proficient ). Somewhere on this forum
: a person illustrated a temporary skeg, perhaps after using it for a
: while I may learn to paddle without it, the pictures are for Ian
: once again Thank You Nick R.

Nick it might have been my temp skeg you are thinking of here is another pic of it and I will post the final product right after. My boat is a guillemot and I felt the tracking was too loose for my tastes. After asking on this forum and getting some advice from nick himself this is what I came up with. the waterline of the boat was determined as the inner edge of the pine strip in the photo and after two test skegs one of them was 1" tall the other was 3/4" tall tapered back into the hull I decided that the 3/4" one was what I liked and created the walnut one that extends well aft of the waterline simply to blend it into the boat so it doesn't look like a chuck of wood glued to the hull.
This very small amount of fixed skeg smartened the guillemot up alot and since I am told the night heron is a better tracker out of the box then I would think some thing similar will make you a happy camper... paddler.
The final is glued on with thickened epoxy tinted with graphite powder. Two brushed on coats of epoxy after to seal the wood.
Good luck hope this helps

dave g