Re: Expedition Kit

Posted by LeeG on Mar 30, 2005

If you've bought the expedition option i assume it's because you intend on using the kayak well. A few things are worth doing to make it better able to be used well. 1. round over the following edges a LOT. A. inside corner of sheerclamp. B. top inside edge of the coaming,,this cannot be ignored as you'll regret it the first time you have to do a wet exit. C. the deck beam,,you can't round it too much. D. the exposed edges of the under deck hatch hole reinforcements. It only takes a few swipes with the sander to make those smoother. E. cut a couple inches off the bow. You won't find a production kayak with a pencil tip bow. It's dangerous.

You should be able to run your hands anywhere inside the cockpit and compartments and NOT feel any sharp edges. The first time you pack the compartments with dry bags you'll see why. You don't need knuckles missing skin or fingers with cuts when paddling. Nor do you want nice slippery nylon coated drybags getting cuts rubbing against sharp edges. This is not a minor issue. Hands with cuts will severely restrict your enjoyment and capabilities when paddling for many hours. It's easy to ignore things you don't see,,like the under deck hatch hole reinforcements or the underside of the deck but your hands reaching into compartments moving bags into place will expose your knuckes to every edge that wasn't rounded. Oh,,tiny details,,attaching another piece of webbing behind the 6mm wood hip brace so the back band strap isn't wearing on hard wood. Consider cutting a tiny shelf (3/8"x 12")on the bow/stern high wear spots BEFORE glassing the hull and building up a wear strip with 80/20 cabosil/wood flour like the Arctic Hawk over the glass on the ends. Brendan Nelson who paddled a Ch18 down Baja said that he wore through many layers of glass repeatedly on that trip. It takes a THICK ablative layer to handle dragging a loaded kayak repeatedly up the beach. It takes more than a few layers of 6oz glass or a couple layers of dynel. A strip of 3/8" brass isn't a bad idea either but it takes about a 3/16" thick strip of material about 8"x 3/8" on the stern to hold up well.

In Response to: Expedition Kit by Eric on Mar 29, 2005

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