Re: [Paddlewise] Heavy British Kayaks

Actually British kayaks are getting a lot lighter now than they used to be,
I think it is the American market influence. I weighed some many years ago
at over 75 pounds. I think there are two main reasons why British kayaks
tend to be on the heavy side. Boat over boat rescues and recessed deck
fittings (in a hand laid kayak).  A thinner deck is more likely to flex and
if it flexes it may overstress some area where the flex is too great,
causing stress cracks in the gelcoat or worse. Even a tough vacuum bagged
Kevlar deck will get stress cracks in the gelcoat if it flexes too much to
the outside (putting the gelcoat under tension where it is folding). A thick
heavy deck is a stiff deck even if built with inferior materials and methods
(resin rich chopped strand mat and hand lay-up). It will stand up to a lot
of pressure from boat over boat rescues--but if it fails it may fail
catastrophically because resin is much more brittle than glassfiber. I think
the reason they use chopped strand mat (beside lower price) is that without
vacuum bagging and peel ply to remove the bag wrinkles you can't get cloth
or woven roving to conform to the bumps inside created by recessed deck
fittings. Chopped strand mat conforms well so instead of cutting a bunch of
holes in fiberglass cloth for each recess (a nightmare) they use the chopped
strand mat for the whole deck and make it thicker and heavier to make up for
the weaker material.
Matt Broze

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