Jerry wrote; >A friend is a light boat fanatic. He has, for example, a 38 lb Kevlar Seda >Swift. When paddling in waves the boat flexes like a fabric boat. The deck >can be flexed with a finger. He does not use it loaded on expeditions but >does paddle rough water. He swears it is plenty strong enough. > >How light is too light? > I have a sprint kayak made by Hudson Boatworks of rowing shell fame. It weighs 18 pounds (carbon fiber and honeycomb) which still seems plenty strong. The boat has weathered five years of hard use (loaned out to racers so you can imagine). I believe Richard Culpepper tours in his sprint boat and I think I could tour in mine so long as I didn't use it for heavy duty surf landings etc. I had a 17' canoe (also carbon fiber and honeycomb) also built by Hudson that weighed 21 pounds before the rails and seats were put on. It survived a lot of whitewater. Still in use so far as I know. Jack Coughlan of Hudson told me that he thought he felt he might take out a couple of more pounds in the details (seat etc.) but not a lot more on the laminate. Mind you, we did no destructive testing to see what it would stand. ETC,. Cheers, John Winters Redwing Designs Web site address, http://home.ican.net/~735769 *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Sep 08 1999 - 05:12:14 PDT
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