Duckling finally in the water!

Builder's Forum
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Well, after a summer of scrounging for enough time to get her together, my boy James and I finally got his duckling that he christened 'Baby Blue' in the water.  I still plan on adding some handles and tweaking with the finish some more as I'm not terribly happy with it but I wanted to get a few trips in before the snow flies.

As, I'm sure, with anyone building a boat for the first time there are a few things I'll do differently on my next one (and there WILL be a next one) as a result of things learned the hard way.  Overall though, I'm not at all embarassed to put it on a public water way and it's already started conversation.

Here is a public link to my Facebook album on the build (yeah, I know, my shop is a TERRIBLE mess!)...

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2999201056442.2129423.1154748025&type=1&l=2191305db2

Here is my YouTube video with some clips of it where it belongs - in the water!....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTUbklmyb8E

Thanks Chesapeake for a great product that was a blast to put together.

 

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Oh, and one more note:  The white balances on my cameras do not accurately depict the blue color.  It is way darker than the pics and videos show it to be.  We went with Ocean Blue in the Interlux Brightsides Line.  I like the sharp contrast from painted hull to varnished deck.

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That's the perfect kid's boat. Great to see your lad paddling out independantly, that must make your heart sing.

I love the paint/bright finish combination. I did Isla's duckling in Squall Blue.

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The ticker was signing indeed.  It was the way he jumped into our inflatables last year at age 6 1/2 and paddled them with no instruction that made my decision what my first boat build was going to be.  Thanks again for your posts on the other threads that gave me a bit of a visual to put to the concept.  I too have always liked a tasteful combination of paint to clear finish.