Having dropped several of my strip-built kayaks from eye level and having them bounce I will say that it is not a great indication of strength for surfing and other real-world type forces. For one, if the SOF is lightly built it will be light in weight. Dropping a light weight object does not produce the same force as dropping a heavy object. Leaves are not considered that strong, but rarely break when falling from even very tall trees. The most you might be able to say is the boat is strong for its weight, but only if other boats tend to fail this test. The loading of a kayak in surf is not the same as to load from dropping a kayak 6'. This is not to say that SOF boats are weak, or that they can't be used in surf, only that surviving a drop test is not all that relevant. A better test would be to put the boat across 2 saw horses and have someone hop up and down in the cockpit. At least then you testing with loads similar to those experienced in real use. The likely region of failure in most long sea kayaks would be in the cockpit area. I suspect SOF boats will have higher stress concentrations than monocoque boats because all the load will be concentrated in a few small parts: ribs, gunwales, deck beams. Nick On Sep 12, 2004, at 9:49 PM, Kirk Olsen wrote: > On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 09:36:58 -0700, "Dave Kruger" > <kdruger_at_pacifier.com> > said: >> Guy south of me a ways on the Oregon Coast. >> >> He apparently paddles his in serious surf -- the beach there is very >> exposed. > > Given my bias (I run the skin/frame kayak mailing list) > > I think a skin on frame ends up stronger, in some ways than a 'glass > boat. I did demos at a symposium with a friend and our standard > response to "it looks fragile" was to lift a 24 pound greenland style > boat to eye level and drop it onto the rock beach, where it bounced. Nick Schade Guillemot Kayaks 824 Thompson St Glastonbury, CT 06033 USA Ph/Fx: (860) 659-8847 http://www.guillemot-kayaks.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 Mon Sep 13 2004 - 10:50:42 PDT
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