adding weight

Posted by LeeG on Aug 28, 2007

For those who are sincerely concerned about making the kayak light there's all kinds of places to eliminate non-structural weight so that what few oz. of glass are added can provide durability for 200-300lb package of paddler and kayak.

Extend sheerclamps to the ends as the foreshortened sheerclamps require huge endpours to fill the gap.

Replace 6mm bulkheads with 4mm. Anyone who has seen a modern fiberglass kayak with thin bulkheads realizes it doesn't require a thick piece of wood. Especially a s&g kayak that is even more rigid than a glass boat.

Configure the construction so the big deck beam and mini-deck beam are removed after the deck is on. The tall coaming stack and 1" deck beam are redundant.

glassed 4mm coaming works as well as 6mm coaming.

Reducing the dimensions of the sheerclamps is a substantial weight savings. The A.Hawk sits on a 3/8" wide sheerclamp, other CLC kayaks had 1/2" wide sheerclamps. 34' of cypress is a lot of wood where the 3/4" width and 1" depth is necessary for ringnails and 1" deck screws. It doesn't have to be that dimension to join the deck and hull if you use duct tape to hold the deck while the 'poxy cures(like the A. Hawk).

3' 9oz tape is overkill but it suits a construction where stitiching wires were left in. One could simply line the bottom of the kayak with 6oz cloth wrapping up over the chine joint 1 1/2" and eliminate the redundant use of 6oz cloth AND 9oz tape. The vertical side panels have less of a need for interior glass.

In Response to: Re: Oops! by Laszlo on Aug 28, 2007

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