Team RAF would like to announce a new sponsor, Great Outdoor Provision Co. of North Carolina. GOPC is one of the best outdoor clothing and outdoor sport outfitters on the east coast with an extensive line of name brand products at great prices. When we contacted GOPC about the Everglades Challenge they responded with excitement and have been working with us to get us geared up and ready for race day. With spray skirts, PFD's, paddles, base layers, as well as a generous discount for all of the other items on our wish list.We are really glad to support our local outfitter and they are glad that we are out there doing the stuff that they are all about. A great big thanks to Chuck Millsaps who has been great in helping us get what we need for our first water trials this weekend.
Today, Mike and I were over at the GOPC store in Raleigh to check out some spray skirts and cockpit rims for the boats. We are thinking about using a prefab cockpit rim from Hurricane kayaks that GOPC is helping is obtain. This would cut down on the build time for the cockpits considerably. After borrowing a cockpit sizing form, we headed over to the shop and cut out all of the hatches on both boats.
After that we bought some insulation and space heaters so we can heat the shop and do some epoxy work tomorrow. We finished up with some dry assembly of the crossbeams and amas on the hull. They sure look good. Make note that the cockpits are not to their final shape yet but are instead the size of the inside hatch rims. We cut the hatch rims out of the cockpit locations to save wood and since they already had the approximate curve in them.
This also let us make some measurements on the inside width where the seats will go so that my dad can start working on the seats. Here are the hulls all full of holes. It was nice to see the inside of the boats again. Soon we will be gluing on the crossbeam supports and finishing the hatches. In other news, my dad took some time today to pick up the hobie rudders that we will use from Vlad (AKA Crazy Russian). He drove up to deliver the rudders to us. We really appreciate his help. 
