Back At It

It’s been over a week since we’ve worked on the B&B Yachts Grand Diva. Yeah I know, that’s not the way to get it done in time for the Everglades Challenge. We even missed out on the 3-day weekend. But Paul had some big deadlines, and we were at a point where I couldn’t really proceed on my own (meaning I didn’t know how).

So Paul caught up with some work, and I spent last weekend paddling and camping with KiwiBird and Floatsome, both of whom posted trip reports about our paddle on their blogs.

Then this week’s evenings were all about the Carolina Kayak Club with Board meetings and Web Tech Committee meetings, and plans for the Spring Symposium the Club is putting on.

But we’re back at it now. The slide show below shows some pictures taken over the past month of building. We’ve pretty much got the hull finished; all stitched, inwales in, glassed (outer hull and inner cockpit), bulkheaded, epoxied, and all sanded.

This weekend we’re putting in the SmartTrack toe pilot foot pedals. I’ll be using a FeatherCraft rudder, don’t much care for the SmartTrack’s rudder sticking up like that, seems a bit dicey to me when surf lauching or landing. I’m not a rudder person, personally think they are a bit dangerous overall, but this boat is planned to more easily accommodate my Pacific Action Sail, and even eventually my Balogh Sail, so the rudder should simplify steering. We’ll also get the deck stringers in place and start sizing and working on the deck.

I still think it’s all doable, but we’ll need to stay on task. And I’ve still got to find time to keep up the training.