Launchings/Guestbook

I've completed a Endeavour here in Austria. Its made of Spruce (Hull and Deck) and the sheer and stems are made of European Larch.

I've built the boat after your plans in your book, which was really a great help for the building process.

The boat has flush hatches and a recessed cockpit, the cockpit rim is made of carbon. In Autumn 07 I've tested the boat in Lake Klaus in Upperaustria ( 47?49'21.55"N/ 14? 9'30.01"E). I've to say it was the first time for me in a kayak, but the boat was very polite to me and i had no problems for my 45 minutes trip. The future trips will be on the River Danube around my hometown Linz.

On the photos I'm always smiling guess why :-)

Thanks a lot for this beautiful design and your great book.

best regards
Wolfgang Heuberger, Traun , Austria

Dear Joan

thanks for your interest of my hatches. The construction to fasten the hatches is quite simple. inside the boat there a bungeerope is in form of a triangle. One one photo you see the hatch from below, there s a little piece of plywood with an drilled hole i filled with epoxy in, in this hardened expoy i carved the form to fasten the rope. the thin line is to secure the hatch. the only disadvantage of my constuction is that after you open the hatch your fingernails are away specally when they are wet after a longer trip. But the most important thing is that the boat looks perfect not the paddler. :-)

The name of my boat is FILACA (Fichte (Spruce) - Lärche (European larch [Larix decidua])) - Carbon), the 3 building materials that are visable.

Greetings from Austria
Wolfgang

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