>> When I put in, there was no ice visible in the water at all.... but as I went farther south, nearer to the mouth of the Presumpscot River, I started to see occasional smallish chunks of ice. I thought it would be fun to paddle through (and over) some ice....but the scraping sound on my fiberglass hull convinced me to do this only once. So here's the question for all you more experienced winter paddlers: how hard is this on the hull? Is it to be avoided? Is the bark worse than the bite? >> Ice that is floating is close to the melting point -- on its surface, at least -- so I doubt it is hard enough to scratch a kayak. And small chunks that are freely floating yield enough on collision not to create any impact damage. I have paddled on the Mississippi River in winter, and don't hesitate to run my fiberglass kayak up on ice floes and shelves. For photos of ice kayaking, see http://www.isk.canoe-kayak.org/photos.html. That's me bracing on ice in the lower right photo. Chuck Holst *************************************************************************** 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 Tue Feb 01 2000 - 10:43:06 PST
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