Day...Lost count. C'est Fini - That's French you know!

Tea count...Lost count

Injury Count...None:-)

Thankfully none Stickiness Factor...It's always sticky, it's an inevitable part of life and boat building. If it's not resin it's varnish, if it's not varnish it's Golden Syrup. What are ya gonna do. You just gotta roll with it and deal with each sticky icky stickiness situation that life throws at you.
Q. What's brown and sticky
A. A stick!

So as you will of course have noticed I have been more than neglecting my blogging duties over the past month, as I did in the previous month. The canoe build definitely got the better of me and the thought of putting fingers to keyboard at the end of each day entirely lost it's appeal. I fear I may have lost some friends along the way as I have without doubt left them lost and alone without my weekend posts. Regretfully, and with the merest hint of sarcasm, I care not as it was never my intention to entertain with my musings, more just keep a record of the build! The pressure of writing a whole page each week became too much for my small and underdeveloped brain hence the lack of updates during the latter stages. However, I thank you all for reading, both of you, and I hope from the bottom my bilges that reading my ramblings over the first quarter of the year has provided a modicum of interest and entertainment, despite that never being my intention - just in case you didn't get that!

So all's well that ends well and as you can see from the title, boat is indeed finished!!! To be honest the last six or seven days of the build that have not been documented would have made for very dull reading. It would have been more like watching varnish dry... as that's exactly what I was I doing. So it would have exactly like watching varnish dry, hmmmm! The last days were spent sanding, adding resin, sanding more resin, sanding, varnishing, sanding, varnishing...you can see I was losing my enthusiasm at this stage.

Ooh I nearly forgot! I made seats! That was quite exciting and it got me indoors too as the weather stunk! I made wooden frames and added a lattice (I think that's the right word - not lettuce as the spell checker keeps trying to tell me) middle made from strong webbing tape. It seems to work very well, although I did have to re-enforce the frames as I had made them a tadge spindly. This was discovered on the first of our sea trials (river not sea) and whilst the seats did support my victim and I they were flexing a little too much for comfort.

My largest fears concerning the bulkhead joint were unfounded. Such and odd word! How can you unfound something. Does this mean that you lost something, found it and then lost it again? It's like "disgruntled". Has anyone in the history of mankind ever actually been gruntled? There are more like this but I digress. I put silicone over one end of the bulkhead with cling film (other brands are available) on the other bulkhead to stop it sticking. I then bolted the two halves together and left for one hour on gas mark 6 until the silicone began to skin over. I then separated the two halves and removed the cling film. The theory being that I would now have a perfectly matching silicone gadget on one half of the boat. It only bloody worked didn't it!? This was the final task and the only remaining thing to do was to practice loading it onto the car unaided. Deciding that caution should be excercised as I was highly likely to either wreck the boat, wreck the car or both, I waited until Zena was two hundred miles away in Cornwall. It was a good plan as the experience was slightly hair raising.

I asked Jason - my son in case you thought I had gained a friend, to stand by and jump in to lend some muscle if needed. In retrospect this was a very irresponsible act of parenting. Had I indeed required his muscle it would surely have ended up with him acting as nothing more that a landing cushion for a very heavy boat! Anyway with much huffing and puffing and and a lot of laughing and words of discouragement such as "dad I don't think this is going to end well," from the afore mention son, the boat did indeed end up atop the car. It looked magnificent!

My good friend Ollie, who I had let down terribly with regards to a promised canoe camping trip by being far too slow in building my boat, had forgiven me enough to join me for the first test on the water. 

With my heart in my mouth, Jason and I swung her into the water for the first time. I hardly dare look at the bulkhead join or into the promisingly named "watertight hatches" at the ends. Then, to my utmost surprise I was struck by the realisation that there were no leaks, not a one! I was flabbergasted, slightly emotional but more than anything else, utterly knackered. Carrying the boat from car to river was exhausting, a canoe trolley is thus being sought!

The next couple of hours was spent heading up river and through a lock and I can honestly say it was awesome. Paddling a few feet from nesting moorhens, dive bombed by Canada Geese and being pissed on from the heavens by hailstones as sharp as cut glass were all part of my first magical trip! The second trial, the next day was a gentle paddle up the Thames from East Reading back toward town. With Jason relaxing at the back, this was pleasant couple of hours with the only threat coming from some perturbed looking swans (don't ask me how a swan looks perturbed but it did!) We even stopped near the lock for a picnic of Bacon and lattice sandwiches!

Next is one more river trial but with Captain Zena at the helm to get her used to swinging her paddle before the official launch which will be announced soon. This I hope will take the form of a launch picnic on a bright, sunny and warm May day.

It is then with a tinge of sadness but with a bucket load of relief that I sign off from my blogging duties. I shall be back at some point as I have some new project ideas forming which consist of an underwater housing for my video camera (Zenas none too keen on that one!) and then a cedar strip built Kayak - Wooohoooo. And if I get round to the latter I promise I'll blog the bollocks off that one!!!