Rex Roberton wrote: SNIPPED > Is your grad student friend only interested in fiberglass? How about a > comparison between skin boats and fiberglass. I have a wood frame skin boat > (yellow cedar, red cedar, and white oak, nylon fabric with polyurethane > coating). It weighs 32 pounds. It is an engineering wonder. Lots of > flexible pieces lashed together. No glue or metal fasteners. The boat > flexes on impact. The forces are distributed among many flexible pieces. > > Does anyone know if any engineers have done tests comparing wood frame skin > boats with fiberglass? I'm putting my money on the skin boats. 5,000 years > of skin-boaters can't be wrong. :) > > Rex I have anecdotal information on folding kayaks being banged through surf in the same waters as hardshells and the folding boats doing fine whereas the hardshells developin hard to repair (in the field) cracks. But nothing scientific. You mentioned totally flooded hardshell kayaks sustaining damage when moved around. I know of a similar situation with a totally flooded folding kayak, which was recovered by a fishing boat. In their handling of the folding kayak (a double Klepper) and bringing it aboard fully loaded with water and camping gear, they broke a few wooden frame pieces with a small puncture of the kayak's deck by one jaggered frame piece. I also have a validated account of several folding kayaks being picked up by a tornado and smashed against concrete structures with no damage. But I really don't know what the forces were (except severe winds) and only have the person's thought that a fiberglass boat might have sustained damage. I don't want to spark a holy war on hardshells vs. skinboats (or folding ones) but there is something to be said about an internal structure that has lots of give to it and a flexible skin. 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/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 Thu Oct 12 2000 - 06:01:35 PDT
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