pinned boat equals doom
The whole point of my earlier post is that kayakmedic claimed Bell’s ultralight boats are not durable because of an experience with a pinned boat breaking gunwales and tearing.
My point is that the post doesn’t relate anything to Bell’s construction. Bell’s 2 piece aluminum gunwales are the stiffest and strongest aluminum gunwales that I know of. Try putting a set on a boat and you’ll understand how bomber the design is, but even the best won’t hold up when pinned. Any boat that is pinned in current is bound to have something break. That doesn’t make paddling in current dangerous, but it is why we are all taught to be on the upstream side of a swamped boat.
opinion
– Last Updated: Dec-13-08 12:34 PM EST –
I never much liked Bell's Kev/Crystal/Lite laminate. It is a serial attempt to approximate WeNoNah's laminate performance and weight that never quite got there, when, all the while, Bell had a vastly superior carbon/kevlar laminate.
The early KC hulls had a gel coat but no outer. Just a little flimsy. The recent skin coated hulls are sturdier, but need a Bag lady bag to reduce UV degradation. Another issue was, back in the last century, Bell didn't have an oven to heat and shape foam cores. The result was that for their foam cores sprang back towards flat when the wet-bag vacuum came off. This resulted in flattened bottoms.
The combination of aluminum rails and wooden seats and thwarts has always struck me as strange. Why add items that require maintenance to an otherwise maintenance free hull?
Lastly, wet-bagged boats have more internal flaws and lower fabric to resin ratios than infused hulls, whoich are lighter and stronger all things being equal. BlueWater, Nova, Placid, Savage and Swift currently infuse, so....?
But, please remember that there is probably a reason Ted and I tore the blanket back when the century died.
That last comment
went right over my head Charlie. “…tore up the blanket…”?
Jim
divorced/split/separated
Ahhh…
It all makes sense now. Have to add that one to my lexicon.
Jim
I thought…
the correct phrase is, “split the sheets”, not tore the blanket. ;=} Nothwithstanding proper idiomography, thanks for the tutorial on this subject. It’s valuable info as usual.
for you its sheets
For Charlie that would be a blanket. He is up north. We too like to sleep cuddly.
the real question is…
is the blanket cotton or a quick drying synthetic? Your life could depend on it!
Wjen I got divorced
my wife “split the towels”, leaving me with no matching sets.
And I cannot tell you how that offends my sense of decorating style.
Jim
Aluminum and Wood
I personally don’t find the combination of aluminum gunwales and wood thwarts/seats to be “strange”. Every Royalex canoe I’ve ever seen that was equipped with vinyl gunwales (also maintainance-free) had wood thwarts and seats, so “strange” seems to be the industry standard. Anyway, wood gunwales require a lot of care and are prone to rotting (I’m not saying I don’t like them) and replacing gunwales is a huge job, but seats or thwarts rarely rot-out and if they do they can be replaced during your coffee break. Since I’ve yet to see my first non-wood bench-style seat in a canoe (other than in all-aluminum or all-plastic boats), I wonder what framing material you would recommend. maybe the plasticy stuff they use to frame modern windows? That might work.
quick drying cotton!
How did you like the snow!
Do you own a shovel?
I do have a shovel…
but it’s not a snow shovel for sure! The snow was beautiful for about an hour. The woods looked like a war zone after Hurr. Gus. but the Cherry Laurel, Wax Myrtles,and Yaupon came through that OK. They are not designed for snow loads, like some evergreens and many bent over then snapped off. Then the snow melted and everything got sloppy. All things considered, I could have done without it. I had to break out the ole chainsaw again and clear the road for about 500 feet of Wax Myrtle tops, before it was passsable. The next tree or hedge that falls on the road is just going to have to stay there!
after this year
you couldn’t have too many trees left…
but you now have had OTJ training for a logger.
Wife’s family
Wife’s family over in Hammond, they had 6". Mom’s work cancelled, her dad was stuck down in Norco cause of the bridges, he was at work before the snow came.
When we lived in Nola, we always said if we had anything like northern snow it would be utter chaos. Even light rain drove traffic to a standstill.