"Seal Seeker" was christened and launched for sea trials yesterday in Plum Island Sound off Pavilion Beach in Ipswich. Some mods:
1) More extreme bow overhang.
2) Bow and stern Valley style rubber hatches.
3) Grab lines along gunwales.
4) Padded seat.
I used 10-oz ballistic nylon and two-part polyurethane colored with rusty earth pigment to simulate seal skin. That and the hatches added to the weight. I couldn't get the cockpit rim to screw together from underneath, so I ran the 1 1/4" screws in from above. All the screws are silicon bronze, and the staples to pull the skin taut around the openings are rust-proof Monel. After we covered a demo day at a local retailer for our September issue, my wife, who paddles an old Necky Arluk 1,8. said that she thought the Long Shot was a better design and paddled more easily than any of the bots we sampled! Her only complaint was that her hands rubbed on the cockpit rim. I said that the Long Shot was designed for big chubbies like me (and Jeff - sorry Jeff), and that she would be better off in the Short Shot. Maybe the next build...?
The really depressing thing is that I am SMILING in all the pictures. No wonder everyone thinks I am an unrepentant grouch!
In the last picture, you can see my "whalebone" rub keel, made from a nylon carving board. There is one in the stern, as well.
The finished frame. So pretty, I hate to skin it.
Hauling out of the "workshop," our screen porch. Mary Magdelene is one of a pair of Orthodox icons we got when we adopted our son, Anton, from St Petersburg, Russia. The other is John.
Our 83-year-old paddling friend, Peter Moore, who came down with his wife, Alicia, to share the fun!
"I christen thee Seal Seeker." Have to get that translated to Greenlandic...
Wife and publisher Tammy and I share some bubbly. Dammit, I was smiling there, too!
Off I go. Although you can;t tell from the photo, there is some nasty stuff, little boils and refracting waves off the point to the right background, where the Ipswich River meets the incoming tide, which is pushing through at this point at about 3.5 knots.
First run. Stable, dry, tracks like a train, steers like a cow. I was hesitant to lean hard without a sprayskirt, but the boat is hard to turn It may be the bow and stern rubrails. which accentuate the keel. Tomorrow, I will wear the skirt and lay Seal Seeker right down on her cheeks. There is a line of sandbars almost straight ahead of me. 22 years ago, while waiting for a date with the lady whom I was to marry, i was surfing off them in a fog one October morning. I glanced to my right, and there was a seal surfing the clear wave right next to me! Never before or since - we were the only living beings on the water that day, And so - Seal Seeker or Puisinniaq in Greenlandic.
Returning after a fabulous run. I thought I was smiling here, too. Maybe my father isn't the old grouch I thought he is...