Paul Raymond wrote: > > Read the ad carefully. It does not include the hull. I just called and > confirmed this. It is also not a 98. That's when the present owner purchased > it used from a sailing club. It is also missing sails, and basically all > fabric items. He has revarnished it. Anyone know what a klepper frame is > used of unknown age? > > "The folding wood frame of this 17 foot Eskimo-style kayak, which is for > sale..." I wondered about the possibility of it being just the frame and sailing hardware. But the language was unclear. It is a bit lacking in ethics to call it a 1998 because he purchased it in 1998. There are ways of telling what range of years the frame might be just by looking at the piece. While there is complete compatability of that Aerius line from the early 1950s to present day (you could take a Number 3 rib for example from Dr. Lindemann's 1956 transatlantic boat and place it in a boat made in 2000) there are little subtle differences that helps pin down the years some. And if it is of a more recent vintage, of say the last 15 years, even the individual year. All the pieces seem to be there from his count of frame parts. Since wooden frames can go on forever (I have parts from a 1930s boat that are still supple for a specific placement that needs them not to be stiff) it would be okay to buy and then get a hull. You would in effect have a new boat. All the sailing hardware is handy too as a sail can be made or bought and a jib which is necessary for that sail arrangement to beat upwind. I have a friend here in New York City, an artist/sculptor, who is well into the Greenland kayak culture (an enormous personal library) and paddles a Betsie Bay. Prominently hanging in his loft studio/home is the frame of a single Klepper from the 1960s or 1970s. It is a cherished work of art as are other objects he has acquired or created. He is talking about trying to temporarily skin it with heat shrink nylon to see how it would behave. The boat, the Aerius I, normally has a beam of 28 inches because of sponsons. A shrink skin tightly on it would bring the beam down to 22.5 inches (we measured it with allowance for skin thickness). Would be interesting to see what kind of boat it would be then and how it would handle. Probably like the T-9 which is a non-Aerius version of Klepper that was made until fairly recently. You know, I have been at this folding kayak stuff for a dozen years now (10 years with the newsletter). You would think that by now I would have become jaded, bored or blase about things like looking at a frame, or watching a folding kayak being assembled. But it still excites me. I still get the same kick out of the frames and the magical apparition of a boat from a bag that I got when I first saw one emerge. I hope I never lose the joy. ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 - 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 Sat Apr 08 2000 - 06:43:57 PDT
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