I have a 1998 Mad River Slipper in the Carbonlite 2000 layup that I traded for about a year & a half ago and I haven't abused it yet on shallow rocky bottomed streams and it still looks pretty. I'm wondering how the Carbonlite 2000 material handles the type of abrasion of scraping over miles of rocky bottom compared to poly, royalex & composites.
Anybody have experience with Carbonlite 2000 & shallow, fast & rocky bottomed streams?
Lost a Nighthawk…
on the little Beaver. My hull had three (slight) cracks in it (water leaking in) and was scratched and gouged a lot!
The cracks could have been repaired, but the kayak shop said they couldn’t do anything about the scratches. If I were you, I’d rent/buy a beater.
I don’t think you will notice high wear
because the material combines reasonable hardness and adequate flexibility. I’ll bet you can subject it to a lot of scraping and dragging without losing enough material to be of concern.
Now, aesthetic concern… That’s another thing. Do you want to paddle some of those rocky streams, or do you want to sit in your hammock and contemplate the unblemished surface of your Carbonlite 2000 hull? I know what I would do. Also, I’ll bet there is a way to do good West epoxy repairs on the material, as long as you take pride in the patches rather than trying to hide them.
I have a Keowee 1 and Keowee 2
by Perception for when I want to take a boat where noone who cares about their boat would take it. I took my Poke Boat down a local stream a couple weeks ago and the rocky bottom removed a little more skin coat than I’m comfortable with.
If the same amount of Carbonlite 2000 was removed from my Slipper hull each time I went down that river, I might not get very many trips out of it. If that was the case, I would just use the Slipper when the water level is a little friendlier (deeper) and use the Keowees when I know I’ll be scraping bottom alot. The Keowees aren’t nearly as fast as the Slipper, but they’re plenty tough.