Craig said (snip): >I don't think I'm as hard on boats as you have been in the past...We used 12oz ballistic nylon in our boats because Brian couldn't get the 8oz he usually uses. No big penalty in weight but much tougher. The 2-part poly he uses for the nylon is also pretty rugged.< I know they are tough, tougher than a 50 pound Brit boat is some respects, but perhaps not as tough as my Nordy, witness it taking out a logging truck shop's garage door, being blown off my van onto the pavement, belly-first; direct cartwheels over boulders in the surf, etc. Okay, so an SOF might be lighter. >The nice thing about a SOF is that you can make it more durable... laminate *all* the ribs and use more of them and laminate the chine pieces and keel piece. Heck, you can even include aluminum or stainless steel if you have a mind to. Not what one might call "classic" but what the heck.< Yeah, there we go again, making a kayak tougher. Well, I'll accept anyone's offer to test their SOF out in some rock gardens. Bear in mind, I'm not a normal rock garden paddler. Unlike a well-heeled BCU paddler deftly plying his craft around obstacles with the occasional rub, I invented a new sport called pin-balling, where you intentionally bounce off rocks and rock faces gaining speed toward some quasi-tangible goal (or just getting out alive - usually). Doing this in a bombproof glass Coaster would probably been more fun than in a Nordy with a thick, directional keel strip, but an SOF version of a maneuverable craft, I don't know. I hate dipping into a deep chasm all completely rigid and then pulling out completely limp before finishing the run. I've never seen a limp, abused SOF, but I doubt it would float well. >A stripper, even if you have a shop and the time, takes months but you can whang out a pretty decent SOF in weeks (if not days). Plus it's cheaper. And if you break it just re-use the pieces to make another one.< >I suspect that, once you had all that time and money into a stripper, you'd be pretty reluctant to duplicate the current condition of the Nordy anyway. :P Craig< Well, if I did build a stripper for abuse use, the cedar would be the armature only, followed by heavy, overlapping layers of cloth, then painted. Not understanding my predilections? Craig, if you could only travel down the corridors of my memory... DL *************************************************************************** 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 Feb 24 2010 - 22:09:22 PST
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