Sanding Sanding Sanding

I thought we’d finshed sanding the hull, but then Paul told me what we’d done was just fairing, and that there was more fairing and sanding needed inside the hull too. So Saturday was spent sanding

and sanding

and sanding.

Saturday was an absouletly beautiful sunny warm day, perfect for paddling, but we needed to make some good progress on my Grand Diva this weekend. Only 5 weekends left before the Everglades Challenge, and I need at least one of them to get to know the kayak, and make sure its customized and comfortable. I did manage to sneak out for a bike ride later in the afternoon, but we worked all day and into the night.

We also got the footpegs figure out, which meant I got to sit in the kayak :)  for the first time to check on placement. It’s more canoe than kayak right now. We’d decided not to drill through the hull to mount the footpegs, opting instead to add some wooden supports and use that and a footbrace mounting kit to mount the screws on the inside of the hull.

And as planned we got the stringers cut out and fit. The cockpit will be 1” higher both fore and aft, compared to my NDK Explorer (which is a perfect fit for me). I’m just not an LV sized girl, so 1” doesn’t seem much to me, and it’s certainly not anything I can’t work with regards cutom fitting it.

Sunday, still unseasonably warm (60’s) , was a cloudy dreary day, with rain predicted. The supports for the footpegs needed scraping and another coat of epoxy, and Paul thought it a good day to do an endpour in the stern (this to add more struture for the rudder mounting.

So with nothing for me to do on the kayak, I went paddling :).  Winds were predicted, but I found the lake calm and glassy. The Carolina Sailing Club  (CSC) was having one of their winter series races. I wasn’t even sure the sailboats would get away from the dock, but very slowly the six winter sailors managed to make it out to the race boat to start a very slow race. The CSC is the club that Alan sailed in for a couple years when he had his Isotope sailboat a catamaran designed specifically for our local lakes.

I’m quite excited that the CSC has just started a Day Sailors group, it’s been primarily focused on one-design bouey racing. It’s just the kind of group that Paul and I have been looking for for our Core Sound 20, the “Dawn Patrol” .  Just what I need, another club :).

By the time I’d returned to the car, I’d paddled 25 miles, a fairly good training day (still need to get in a couple 30-35 milers), and managed to return home early afternoon, just as some rain started, and the end pour was hard enough to bring the kayak inside.