Steve Cramer wrote: > > What Ralph said: > > > > Just my two cents of bow and stern lines. Use 'em. > > What I expected Raplh to say: > > I have never experienced any problems with my kayak sailing out of the > trunk of my car during a panic stop. What's the big deal? > > Steve ;) Life is full of the unexpected. While I was tempted to say exactly what you said, I restrained myself. I also restrained myself in the discussion of maintenance and repair of fiberglass, gelcoat, hatches, stress fractures, etc. One of the raps against folding kayaks in all general kayaking books is that they require lots of maintenance. Interesting thought but one that hardly any folding kayaker practices except those who want to keep their boat for 60 years. Of people with wooden framed kayaks, I have seldomly run across any who have varnished the frames even every few years. My little fleet's wooden framed kayaks have never seen a lick of varnish in 10 years; the varnish I dutifully bought in my first year has long since dried up in the can. I wash the boat when the opportunity presents itself, i.e. a hose happens to be around, and so some boats have not been washed in years. With aluminum framed kayaks, all I ever see anyone do is an occasional (2 or 3 times a year) lubricating of the male ends of tubes and any sliding portions of tubes. I have no patches on the hulls of any of my boats although the beaches I pull up on tend to be only 15% sand with the rest of nails, rusting car parts, and unknown (and best left that way) particles. I have broken one wooden longeron, the sum total of damage in 10 years or so. And it happened while cartopping the boat!!! Someone had stolen one of my two racks but I had to go anyway with several boats on the roof. The longeron, which usually sits on a padded kayak rack bar (now stolen), wound up pressed against the factory roof bar and the longeron broke in transit. And as luck would have it, I was paddling with Doug Simpson owner of the Feathercraft company known for its aluminum frame approach to folding kayaks. When we were knocking down all the boats on a city street near his hotel, he saw me withdraw the broken wooden longeron from my Klepper and asked in a most dry Canadian way "Ralph, does that happen often?" ralph -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Apr 20 1999 - 06:37:18 PDT
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