Tim,

All my boats are bright finish and all of them have scratches on the bottom from sand, rocks, oysters, barnacles, etc. I keep telling myself I need to re-varnish the bottoms but so far haven't and nobody ever says anything about it when they're looking at the boats. So my advice to you is just don't worry about it. But if you can't ignore a few scratches you can cut down on the number by avoiding beach landings, i.e. get out of the boat in a foot or so of water so the bottom never touches. Do the same when launching.

The worship service sounds nice. Where abouts do you live?

George K

George:

Thanks for your thoughts.

The beach worship service I referenced is in Fairfield, CT, on Sasco Beach.

Tim Clark

An easy temporary fix option would be to mix a real small batch of epoxy and fill your scratches during the week.  Look at your yak's bottom when you pull out for the day/weekend.  If there are any scratches that look like they're close to the glass or into the glass, make plans for a quick fix one night during the week.  Get a clean, small plastic lid, 3x5 card or some such to mix the epoxy on.  Using your pump, carefully lay down a bead of resin, then another bead of hardener that's half as long (assuming a 2 to 1 mixing ratio), mix the two beads together, and spread into the scratches with your mixing stick, a toothpick, a match stick, whatever's handy.  (You have cleaned the scratches at least with water or alcohol and let it dry for a while, right?)  Go back the next morning or when the epoxy has started to gel and clean any glop you missed or were afraid to mess with liguid.  I use the edge of a freebie credit card, bent slightly to match the surface so you don't pull epoxy out of the scratch.  It took more time to write this than to actually fix a few scratches.  Keep paddling!