[Paddlewise] Who Else Has Had the Guts?

Sea Kayakers,





I was wondering who else has had the guts to cut through the fiberglass and
grind down the gelcoat of a brand new sea kayak?





I have a new Boreal Design Ellesmere, and I am extremely happy with the kayak,
except for one thing, which is that the skeg is a piece of crap. As long as it
is clean, it works fine, but it doesn't stay clean doing surf launches and
landing on the sandy beaches of Southern California. The surf blasts sand into
the skeg, and it jams up. Without the skeg, the kayak weathercocked and was
squirrelly, because there is a lot of rocker in the last few feet of the keel
line at the stern.





Well, I couldn't have a skeg that jammed almost everytime I did a surf launch
or landing, which is typical around here, so I went to work. The skeg was
thrown in the trash and skeg box cut out (to allow more storage room). Then
using epoxy and fiberglass I built an integral skeg, very similar to the
Nordkapp HM or the Mariner models. I never would've had the guts to do it on a
new kayak if I hadn't done it very successfully before on a older Arctic Hawk
that I own.





Are there many other practitioners of hull modification out there?





Duane Strosaker


www.rollordrown.com





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