This awesome photo of seven of our award-winning Chesapeake 17s comes from Catherine Guay in Quebec. She writes:

"We are a group of scouts from Quebec in Canada and we name ourselves Les Aînés de St-Benoît. We are 8 people from 17 to 26 years old. We decided two years ago to build our own kayaks and to paddle along the St-Lawrence River from Les Bergeronnes to Havre-St-Pierre in Quebec.

We built 8 Chesapeake 17 from plans. We paddled for one month and slept around in our tents. We prepared dehydrated food for this whole month. It was a great experience. We saw a lot of whales, sometimes a few meters from the kayak, but never had time to take pictures! It was too stressful and amazing!

On one of the kayak, the epoxy never cured! (Probably because of a bad mix). This poor fellow had to buy himself a kayak a few weeks before leaving. Believe or not, 15 days after the beginning of the trip, we had to rename this kayak "total fracture of the bulkhead" because the two bulkheads ruptured in the heavy waves. None of the Chesapeakes broke. We were quite proud of our boats! We had little repairs to do along the way, but nothing serious."

Thanks for the photos and story, Catherine!