[Paddlewise] test paddle continued

    Robert doesn't arrive till the 15th so I have had more time to throughly
"break in" his boat.


     After reading all the discussion about cracked hatch covers I decided to
give them a true test. I grabbed a couple seal bombs tossed them in the boat
and quickly closed the covers. Wow, those suckers can really fly! The problem
is they flew off into a Devil's club patch. (the ultimate briar patch for you
non Alaskans) Luckily I know about where they landed and I shouldn't take
Robert too long to find them.


    I have continued to practice seal landing which afterwhile got to be
boring so I have improvised the technique with  variations I call the "Walrus
lunge", " the Seal  flop" and "the Sea Lion crash and burn". What I have
discovered is that not only do they not  make boats like they used to but
todays duct tape ain't so great either! It seems to take a lot of duct tape to
hold a boat together these days. 


    Finally I decided to really fix the boat. I got a couple gallons of resin
and lots of fiberglass mat and went to work. I left all the duct tape on the
boat hoping for a deep silver hue effect. I also decided to get rid of the
sharp bow and keel. The boat kept getting caught in cracks on the rocks as I
would try to slide back into the water. With lots of resin and mat I rounded
the bow and keel real well. I also fiberglassed the skeg it the up position
(makes the seal landings go smoother)


    Robert's boat is now a true battlecrusier only weighting  170 pounds!


Bob


Sitka






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