Oh wow....that is BEAUTIFUL!!! I paddled a Night Heron at a CLC demo recently...it's on top of my list of my next CLC build for sure!

Take some pics and/or vids of your kayak in action...the boat looks nothing short of spectacular! Congrats on the build!!

Dan

   I agree...WOW! The satin finish looks amazing. You could make a small fortune building those! Beautiful boat, good luck shaking off the groupies at launch!! Might be an all day affair.

   Hurrah indeed! And WOW, that is one exquisite kayak/piece of art. I look forward to seing pictures of her in the water.

first paddle.....

boat did not sink.  boat floated.

....pictures will come later today.  i had a friend along for the first paddle and all the pics are on his camera.

that said, first paddle worked out perfectly....10 miles round trip covered in a leisurely 2 1/2 hours.  light current and winds working against us most of the trip.

in quiet waters we lopped along at about 4.5 mph were able to hit 6.2 in a sprint.  boat accelerated very easily.

so far, everything i asked for in this build got delivered.  this boat is fast, and very nimble.  turns easily but tracked straight as an arrow with a bit of skeg down.  lots of nice comments on the build.

my other main boat is a west river 180.....and i felt i had all the speed of the 180 with a lot more maneuvarability and all the room where i needed it without all the extra volume to just haul around.  actually felt more roomy that the west river 180 because of the focus on space where it matters and taking volume out where it doesn't.

in addition to the wonderful handling, the nicest feature is the weight of the boat.  the night heron came in at about 39 lbs fully rigged.   i was very careful with the build and the hardware-free rigging approach saved a couple lbs in steel.

will post paddling pics when they come through tonight.

  not a lot of great pics on the water....so this one will have to do