Kevin wrote: >>>>>>>I can't recall who made the hatches but it wasn't VCP. I'll check this weekend. They're screw ons that work great so long as you never drop them in sand. As for the Icefloe it's got the genuine Valley Canoe decal in the cockpit. I've never seen the P & H other than in photos but it seems a little more streamlined than mine.<<<<<<< Those would most likely be Henderson TLC4 hatches (a separate gray outer ring screws down and pulls the very dark (gray to black) middle plate straight down on its gasket) we used to use them ourselves on the bow of the original Mariner in the early 80’s (before Frank Goodman introduced the VCP hatches). Okay, now that I’ve seen the pictures Kevin sent me it confirms they are the 7” round TLC4 hatches both bow and stern and it definitely is an Umnak Icefloe model. Bob Licht founder of Sea Trek would probably know where they were getting Icefloes from back in the early 1980’s. Derek was hanging out in SF a lot around that time and may have had someone making Icefloes there for him locally. As I recall the Dancing Bear Icefloes made in AK in the mid 80’s had a thick white “coremat” material sandwiched between fiberglass layers throughout the entire hull, making the hull very thick and stiff. The one I weighed was 72 (or was it 76) pounds as I recall. The early (imported from England) P&H Icefloes had the foredeck bungies glassed in place after they went through holes drilled into the raised edge area on each side of the channel like foredeck. Your pictures show the deck bungies bridging over this channel area and ending at recessed fittings on the deck much closer to the seam line. Did you remove any of the original decals or were there any decals (other than the VCP one) on the Icefloe when you bought it new? Most Icefloes I’ve seen had large “fancy transfers” (to use Derek’s words) all over the boats but I especially recall the big one on the sides of the rather large high bow. A winged creature with claws barred forward as I remember, possibly a Griffin. Kevin, was the VCP logo just stuck on or was it glassed in place? Where inside the cockpit was the logo placed? Paddlewise’s Robert Livingston bought the Icefloe Derek used on his 1980 Expedition to Prince William Sound in AK and sent it to friends in Seattle. One of the other members of that 1980 Expedition to Prince Williams Sound was George Peck the magistrate of Seward, AK. Last I heard he was the originator of and most accomplished practitioner of “mountain unicycling” around. Afterwards Derek told about his “Expedition” and the International Long River Canoe Club’s newsletter reported on his talk. One sentence in that article was “A bald eagle can kill a man”. Should I worry about this as a potential hazard or will being in a hard-shelled kayak protect me from this menace? Maybe the fancy transfer on the bow of the Icefloes is not a Griffin after all but one of these man killing bald eagles. I think I’ll sell my new movie idea to Hollywood. “CLAWS” has a nice ring to it. Matt Broze http://www.marinerkayaks.com <http://www.marinerkayaks.com/> *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Aug 22 2002 - 00:00:46 PDT
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