Mill Creek damage

Posted by Jon T on Sep 25, 2007

Dave,

If you want to see the damage class 1 and 2 rapids can do to a Mill Creek 16.5, come over and see mine.

I did one 3-day trip on a river in W VA and spent the next couple months rebuilding. The bottom cracked in about 5 places. The glass was damaged in numerous spots

I now have a 2nd layer of 6 oz glass and a cabosil/graphite/epoxy coating on the bottom. The boat is now quite heavy. From what I've been reading on the boards, the inside should also be glassed to avoid the cracking. The Mill creek with its large flat bottom is very suseptible (sp?) to submerged rocks.

I should point out that the boat was very overloaded. This was a Royal Ranger trip. Jesse was supposed to be my paddling partner but a rather large commander couldn't fit is his kayak, so ended up in the front of the MC. With gear we were probably carrying at least 600 lbs.

I'll also point out that the MC was an absolute blast to paddle in those conditions and at the time we thought it was well worth doing the trip. Also it never leaked even though the plywood cracked in a number of places. One fiberglas canoe was destroyed on the trip. All the tupperware boats did fine.

Also if you do want to do a trip with 2 boats you're welcome to borrow mine.

Jon T

In Response to: River camping by David Duhon on Sep 24, 2007

Replies:

• Re: Mill Creek damage by David Duhon on Sep 25, 2007
  • Re: Mill Creek damage by CLC on Sep 25, 2007
    • Re: Mill Creek damage by Robert N Pruden on Sep 25, 2007
  • Re: Mill Creek damage by Jon T on Sep 26, 2007
• Susceptible! by Robert N Pruden on Sep 25, 2007