A paddling day

I didn't do much on the kayak today, just drilled a few holes so I could lash some of the ribs where I'm not happy with how they're sitting in the mortises.

I tried bending the outer ring of the coaming today and it broke right where the main ring broke, probably because of the tight bend there. So I'm going to try something else with the coaming, instead of stressing out about trying to bend it. I'm going to get some 1/2" marine ply and make a laminated coaming instead. I'm a lot better at wielding a jigsaw than I am at bending wood. Also, I'll be building Donna's kayak to a Tom Yost design and the coamings on Tom's kayaks are mostly plywood.

It wasn't a wasted day today though, since we got the double kayak out and went for a paddle. It was Donna's first chance to try out the Greenland paddle. The one I made her is a bit too thick in the handle, so I need to trim that down a bit. The only complaint Donna had was that she ended up a lot wetter than she usually does with the old Euro paddle. She also got to try out a Werner carbon fibre paddle for a few minutes, as we tagged along with Katrina and Tony from Redlands Kayak Tours. Tony's asked me if I want to help out with a big tour they have happening on the 19th, so hopefully I'll have the Greenlander launched by then. If not, I'll be doing it in the Nantucket.

Sorry there's no piccies today, but the only ones I took were of people on the tour since Tony forgot to put a memory card in his camera.