Matt, In your opinion, how strong should a kayak be? Do you have anything besides experience with boats which have survived/failed to base your opinion on? The reason I ask is I am working with a grad student who is looking to do some testing on this subject. We are currently discussing the conditions to investigate. He wants to find out how strong the materials need to be, to be "strong enough". Obviously, the ocean can always produce a bigger wave than you planned on, but we are trying to come up with reasonable estimates. Everyone, If you have had a boat fail, how did it fail, what were the paddling conditions, and what kind of material was the boat? I suspect most failures are do to hitting some object while being pushed by a wave. How often does it happen that the force of the surf just tears a boat apart? Nick ><snip> >I don't like seeing any kayak I sell come back damaged much less broken. You >can be sure that we make our standard lay-up strong enough to stand up to >surf big enough that few paddlers will go beyond the kayaks limits. Those >who might usually know it and can get heavier lay-ups. You can also be sure >that any paddler wanting a custom lightweight kayak is informed of the >limitations of that kayak (bigger surf, rocks in breaking surf, and boat >over boat rescues). The line of price point fiberglass kayaks we carry have >their least expensive lay-up choice also being their strongest and heaviest >lay-up. What most who buy it want is a good kayak at a low price. They >suffer a little extra weight but get a stronger stiffer kayak as well. They >don't break them and I'm happy not doing repairs. <snip> -- Nick Schade Guillemot Kayaks 824 Thompson St, Suite I Glastonbury, CT 06033 (860) 659-8847 Schade_at_guillemot-kayaks.com http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/ >>>>"It's not just Art, It's a Craft!"<<<< *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Oct 11 2000 - 17:33:01 PDT
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