The Umiak has been renamed the Carolina 12.0 Sunday I was told by a Perception Rep. that "Airalite" is an ABS plastic but I think it is much the same if not identical to the polycarbonate plastic Eddyline calls "Carbonlite 2000". I may be mistaken, or polycarbonate and ABS may be related somehow, so don't take this as gospel. If ABS, it must be coated with something else that stops UV degradation. Some kayak companies that started making thermoformed ABS bulkheads soon found that the rear bulkhead would sun degrade rapidly, become brittle and break. They solved this by using ABS that was coated with thin layers of vinyl. To me the Sonoma I saw looked much more like polycarbonate. They were so shiny that at first and second glance I took them for fiberglass. To the Pintail owner. Check those rubber hatches very closely on the 10 year old Pintail. Usually they dry our on the inside first and even if they look okay on the outside, if you flex one while looking at the inside of it you can see how degraded it has become. If there are deep cracks replace it soon or at least before your next big trip. The life of these hatches seems to vary from 5 years to up to 12 or 13 years for some. Seven or eight years seems the average. Personally I think the closed environment of the bulkheaded compartment with its buildup of styrene fumes inside speeds the degradation or drying of the rubber on the inside of the hatch cover. The ones I've replaced only after 12 or 13 years were on a kayaks without a bulkhead holding in the styrene fumes. Matt Broze 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 Tue Apr 29 2003 - 17:31:08 PDT
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