She Floats!

Our first trip onto the water was a success, we did not sink and we did not capsize. That is not to say that we stayed dry, far from it. We launched the beast at a lake in the Cotswold water park on a sunny but fairly windy day. Having borrowed a couple of paddles we launched with great confidence into the clear, and quickly very deep, water. After a few minutes we established that she had passed test one, she was water tight, no gushing of water from hidden holes. Test two was also passed with flying colours, he is very stable well we managed to stay in the boat anyway. Test three however was a little more challenging, would we be willing to take her 125 miles and carry her 77 times without collapsing? Probably not! Without a rudder we were reduced to some braking steering which was not good for morale. After about 45 minutes we had to head back to shore to empty out the water which was now up to about half way in the boat, the large expanse of lake and a high wind had managed to fill us up nicely. The second half was a little better and gave us the confidence for the next phase, find a river!