For Father's Day, Claire gave me some time alone to do some work on my favorite project, a 14 foot strip built sea kayak. I ended up ripping off the decking I had started last fall; I wasn't happy with it. I did salvage my trapezoid inlay piece for use on the stern, but I wanted a cleaner line for the bow, which is about half done, I guess. That hardwood is a darker brown than the spanish cedar I used for the hull, and should look pretty high contrast with the white cedar when it's glassed.
I need help with the name. I was originally going to call it the "Canopus," the mythical captain of Menalaus' ship, and brightest star in the southern constellation Argo Navus. I remember staring at this star on a glow-in-the-dark star chart when I was a kid while I fell asleep, and at the time I didn't understand that I couldn't see it because I lived too far north.
Recently I thought I'd name it the "Chippy McNish", but I'm having second thoughts after finding someone christened a rowboat with that name just last year. I was thinking it would be good luck since Harry McNish was a famous carpenter/shipwright who was on the epic journey of the James Caird, noted for his "grit and determination". He was known for apparently never using a ruler, he would simply look at something and set to work, and somehow everything fitted together perfectly. After fitting strips of cedar 16 feet around a curved boat hull, I can seriously appreciate that.
Here's a picture of the little guy, for my mom, who is against the boat project and just wants pictures of her grandson. As you can see, he was trying to fit in a shoebox, and discovered that it just wasn't going to work out, spatially, even if it did sort of work pictorially.
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