On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, Glenn Stauffer wrote: > I'm preparing to build a skin/frame baidarka and everything I read holds the > sea worthiness of these relatively flexible boats in very high regard - In terms of building I'm assuming you picked up a copy of Wolfgang Brinck's "Building an Aleutian Kayak" for building instructions and George Dyson's "Baidarka" for inpiration. http://robroy.totalsports.net/baidarka has a whole bunch of useful links along with a searchable archive of the baidarka mailing list (subscription info is there too). > Is the stiffness argument as it relates to glass boats more a > matter of whether you can make a lightweight, flexible 'glass boat and not > significantly sacrifice strength rather than whether stiffness is a highly > desireable trait for a general use sea kayak? I don't think you can build a properly flexible 'glass boat so I believe any flex, in a 'glass boat, is wasted energy. Which leaves a separate flexibility argument. Is there a benefit of having a flexible boat over having a rigid boat. Regardless of what the material used was. > I buy the flexible argument myself, I need test numbers to be convinced. One of these days I'll have to run the tests, since I've got the desired boats - a super stiff boat, a british heavy and a flexy baidarka. Sorry, Duane the only plastic boats I want are whitewater ones ;-) > but would have serious questions about the durability of a flexible > plastic or 'glass boat since neither has an internal framework. agreed. I've seen one greenland style kayak built with a frame and a single layer of epoxied kevlar as the skin. It leaked, the instant the skin flexed the resin spider web cracked and started leaking. I've heard rumblings of flexible epoxy but haven't seen any, much less tried it. kirk *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Jan 14 2000 - 10:15:27 PST
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