pdates after updates, Hello World – 3 has become quite heavy indeed, now around 30 kg, too heavy to be handled on my back for long distance. Weight has been one of my weakest point in boat building, I’ve always had fears that the boat will not be strong enough, so put more and more materials in, that results into a much heavier boat than originally speculated 😢. This is the most important thing to be improved in my next build (projected to be toward the third quarter of this year).

Want it or not, HW – 3 is my main boat for now, though quite heavy, it’s strong and has the best performance characteristics among my boats. And I’m gonna have some more preparations for my upcoming trips. I added one more mounting point for the light and camera poles, there’re one aft and one forward of the cockpit, so the camera can be mounted in different positions. Also decided that the Canon Powershot D30 would be my sole camera onboard, used for both picture and video shooting.

The Canon Powershot D30 has much better battery life compared to my GoPro Hero 3, and video quality is comparable, though video resolution is not as good. Furthermore, bringing just one camera, one kind of backup batteries would make things simpler, having less to be cared for when on the waterway. I’m not too keen on taking super fine photographs, bringing a DSLR is too bulky and risky for me, so this D30 is already good, an all – round cam: pictures, videos, and can also be used for diving.

I’ve built another cart for my kayak from cheap MDF, made water – resistant using thinned epoxy and paint, it’s smaller and lighter compared to the previous one (which was made of iron tubes). And I reused the two big air – filled tires, you know how it is pulling a heavy load with small solid wheels on a ‘sinking’ sandy beach. There’re some stuffs I originally planned for my kayak, but they turned out to be very troublesome when faced reality. Among such things are the hatches, simply put: they leak too much!