'Abi,' John's new boat, is headed to the coast for her briny christening. We had her out on the lake yesterday and she did great. A 17 3/8" beam, 18' 3" length with a 6 3/4" back deck has her slicing through the water and rolling like a seal. She is a beautiful boat.
John leaves in the A.M. and since the wind was not blowing at all yesterday we don't yet know how she will handle. Since my boats have a tendency towards some weather cock it seemed prudent to equip the boat with a means to track when the sweep strokes and butt shift lose their effectiveness. 
Greenland boats are often seen with skegs attached with cord or webbing. I usually dowel on a short but longish skeg just aft of the cockpit and shave it over time until the track is just right. Having never produced a strap on skeg this seemed the perfect opportunity. 
John prepped a skeg as we would normally do out of some redwood in the shop. Two holes were drilled in the skeg for cording, we used some reflective deck line left over from his boat (thanks Paul). The holes were drilled a scosh smaller than the cordage. 
The lines were cut to allow sufficient length for a loop at one end to tighten with a trucker's hitch. Cords were fed through the holes and adjusted to place the loop just on the deck when brought around the hull. A small brad was driven into the bottom of the skeg to secure the cord in place. 
To protect the edge of the deck from the biting cord we cut some leather pieces with and drilled them with a very tight fitting cording hole. This should prevent them from slipping off. These were threaded onto the cord. 
The finished product tightens well, looks pretty good and cost some shop scraps and a couple beers to produce. Not to shabby.
' Abi '
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