"...I have been on trips where someone in a commercial boat had a gallon of water accumulate in a day of vaguely rough water paddling without a clearly visible leak even looking at the situation on dry land. That is up there in the "effects handling" category." The backup buoyancy approach has a lot to recommend it. Even with bulkheads and quality rubber hatches, it is comforting to have back up buoyancy inside compartments. If on a long trip, the compartments might be filled with dry bags full of gear. If a day trip, I used to stuff the two larger compartments with an inflatable float bag. I've gotten a bit slack about that lately, as compartments remain dry in all conditions, but the Great Lakes Sinking Story might get me back into that habit. "On my earlier boats I would make hatches that were essentially just two cockpit rims covered with two spray covers, one slightly smaller inside the other. Actually it worked pretty well in an era that good watertight hatches were hard to find ( or some sand would get in the threads or whatever)." Other than VCP rubber hatches, the only other hatch cover I have seen which keeps a compartment completely dry is a vinyl sewn cloth cover with a double thick bungy cord running around a sewn tube at the bottom edge. This goes over a round fibreglass coaming. These are used on "Sea Leopard" kayaks, pictures here: http://raftakayaks.spaces.live.com/default.aspx?_c02_owner=1 Photos 1,2 and 6 in the slides show these hatches. (Some classy paddlers there: check the guy in the red inflatable PFD ;-)) Perhaps surprising that this lightweight system works, but it does, at least in rolling and upright paddling in rough water. I don't have experience of surf capsizes with these, still need to be assured that they hold up against implosion in all conditions, but others say so. *************************************************************************** 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 Wed Apr 04 2007 - 15:02:37 PDT
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