WHOOPS!
Launching Day! I didn't have long but since I live 5 minutes from the water I could not longer resist and had to take the boat to the water. I spent the morning rigging out the deck lines and taking care for a few minor details. I was still waiting on a shipment of cordage so life lines and painters were not finished.
Not a great photo but it shows the lines of the boat really well. As you can see the rear deck is really low at the stern so it might not be be a good boat in really big waves. But it wasn't really designed for that either.
Carried it down the waters edge and snapped a few photos. I have to say I am extremely happy with the recessed front hatch. I will write up some instructions on how I did that and put it on the web site latter on. Not really crazy about the rear hatch. Looks like it was just stuck on there but as low as the rear deck is on this boat there really wasn't any reason or space to recess it. So it's a form follow function thing and I can live with it.
And so far I am very impressed with the quality of these hatches and may start stocking them in my store.
I was unloading the boat off the car I realized something. I had not installed the backband! How I overlooked that I will never know, but I decided to paddle it anyway. I wasn't going to be out long.
I carried it out in the water being careful since I know the paint is not fully hardened not to scrub the rocky bottom. I got situated and first impression was good. It appeared to track very well but I expected that with the V shaped bottom. It seemed to accelerate really fast. For some reason hard chine boats always 'feel' like they accelerate faster to me. I tried a couple of lean turns and while it didn't turn as fast I expected it responded well.
The breeze was picking up so I pointed it across the wind and seemed to want to weather cock. I turned about 90 degrees and it seemed fine. Back and forth a couple of times and the results were the same. OK, whats going on? The more I paddled it I started to realize that the boat was turning to the right, not weather cocking. So that meant there was something wrong with the hull.
I pulled it out of the water and flipped it over in the grass and there it was. The stern of the boat was bent to one side and acting like a rudder on a sailboat. No wonder it was turning! Needless to say I was sick about this.
To keep this short I went back to the shop and studied the problem. I knew the frame was straight when I took it off the jig. So it had to happen when I shrank the skin and I just didn't notice it. Apparently I shrank one side more than the other and that pulled it to one side.
So, with nothing to loose I did something I don't recommend, actually I did several things I don't recommend. But a little bit... OK a lot of brute force and I was able to 'persuade' the stern back into alignment. Making it slide underneath the skin was not easy but it worked and I didn't have to reskin it. So now the keel line is once again straight and I should be able to take it down to the water today for a longer paddle.
I also need to go back to the plans and make some changes to reinforce the stern so that anyone building this boat doesn't run into the same thing.