Now all done! A poor picture of me, but it's the kayak that matters, right? The deck rigging really makes the kayak. Some strip built boats are real works of art and look great without it, but this stitch and glue one at least looked a bit dull and uninteresting when 'bare'. But now it really looks the part.

You can tell I'm feeling a lot more confident too!

Next job is a paddle to replace this old 3.5lb fibreglass one...

Also done by now is varnishing:

• The serious blushing was washed off with WEST water based cleaner and a lot of scrubbing.
• The lots of sanding: smoothing off the edges of the hull to deck joining strips and flattening and providing a key over the whole surfac for the varnish.
• Then 4 coats of System Three WR=LPU varnish, all with the hardener added for extra toughness. This went on OK with a brush, but was very atmospere dependent. The coats in the cooler morning were great, but by the last coat it was wamer and it dried a bit fast, before fully flattening out. My original plan was to then sand back and polish for an ultimate finish so his didn't really bother me, but I ran out of time before the paddling trip . I might still do that in future, but for now it looks OK without. Definitely a 5 metre finish though!