Saturday morning I headed out to paddle with 3 of my paddling buddies. I pulled a tremendous bone head move. I unstrapped the boat, then got in the car to put on my drysuit, it's not warm here in New England just yet. As I was dressing I heard a scratching sound and looked to the left to see my surf ski slide off the roof, and then crash to the ground. While this isn't a big deal for the plastic officiandos. It is a big deal for those of us who paddle the boat equivalent of an egg. My 21' 24 pound all carbon surf ski did not do well on impact. The rudder snapped off the rudder post and the tail of the surf ski landing first ended up with a "fold in the middle" crack in the hull about even with the middle of the cockpit area. The resulting crack is about 18" long going from near one seam all the way across the bottom to the tumblehome on the far side. Bummer. One of the guys was headed near the guy who fixed this boat last spring. So I strapped my boat to his truck, and wished them well as they headed off into the brisk late winter air, for the season opener paddle. They ended up paddling about 8 miles.... Last month I suggested to my wife that I would be interested in getting a new boat, as the now broken boat is showing it's age, and seems to be getting fatigued, with frequent minor damage.... Her response, we'll check the bank account around July, the bank accounts are currently suffering seasonal fatigue. My thought, prior to breaking the boat, was buy a new one and give the current boat to a 15 year old boy, who lives near me. He's got a decent paddle stroke and greatly enjoyed surfing motorboat wakes with me last year. It'll be interesting to see how this works out.... Kirk -- Kirk Olsen *************************************************************************** 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 Mar 02 2011 - 14:02:42 PST
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