@Willow hopefully her kids get her the kayak of her choice when they’re on their feet. Many kids I see now take take take then walk away. If I told my father I need something after HS He would of laughed. I never would ask he got me that far. Thankfully I could do fairly well for them when I got rolling.
Paddling something slow with more effort I could take. Correcting a track all day I could not.
Wish her luck some good boats cheap if you look and have time.
I have been keeping my eye out for a good deal for her and hope to find something by Spring. I’ve had good luck in scoring nice used touring boats for other people in the past, Dagger Magellan for $350, Aquaterra Scimitar for $300 and a Perception Monterey 14.5 (with Werner paddle, skirt and decent PFD) for $400.
Great!
thx for the info, also that bit about towing
castoff I’ll gladly let you tow me anywhere, I got no dignity, just a desire to get out and get back in one piece.
@tdaniel said:
castoff I’ll gladly let you tow me anywhere, I got no dignity, just a desire to get out and get back in one piece.
Tony you need to make a trip out to the coast camping with me sometime.
If you need a tow I’ll do it if you catch me first! >:)
Hows those hips doing for you? Can you get in a kayak alright? I haven’t made it up to WV as you know. Between kids getting married, and having kids themselves, I have taken up sailing. I would like to take my sailboat up to Maine, and down to the Florida Keys at some point.
@castoff said:
@tdaniel said:
castoff I’ll gladly let you tow me anywhere, I got no dignity, just a desire to get out and get back in one piece.
If you need a tow I’ll do it if you catch me first! >:)
Hows those hips doing for you? Can you get in a kayak alright? I haven’t made it up to WV as you know. Between kids getting married, and having kids themselves, I have taken up sailing. I would like to take my sailboat up to Maine, and down to the Florida Keys at some point.
Traitor! BTW, you haven’t towed me anywhere!
You can’t catch me…
“Once polyethylene is severely stretched out of shape, you really can’t restore it. With her boat we’re talking several inches of both vertical and lateral warping. She lives on a super steep hill with 3 flights of stairs to the house so she has kept her kayak stored deck up on the roof rack of her sedan parked on the street 24 hours a day for months every Summer. And before she started paddling with me and I told her she shouldn’t, she was using ratchet straps cranked way down. That kayak was doomed from day 1. I recommended she carry it hull up and gave her a set of regular cam straps, which she uses now but the damage is already done.”
Sorry, but I don’t buy that argument. I’ve fixed several oil-canned kayaks with good success. It takes time. I bought a used Perception Eclipse from a rental fleet that had been improperly stored on wood racks for several years. I managed to get the hull to the point where there is almost no oil canning visible. Once you fix the dent, your friend needs to store the boat on it’s “side” on her roof rack. Get Hull Stackers or a J-cradle for plastic boats. She also needs to buy 303 Protectant and use it regularly if she is storing her boat outdoors. Have your friend read the following blog post.
http://www.sherrikayaks.com/2010/10/26/fixing-indentations-in-plastic-kayak-hulls/
I take back my comment then, since your method apparently works. Has never worked for me, though, doing just as you describe – I could slightly reduce the dent but never wholly restore the profile and in at least one case the oil can dent eventually returned, even though the boat was properly stored, as if it had a memory of the dent. But then I was always working with older boats, 15 to 20 years old, which may have had something to do with the lack of results. Poly gets more brittle with age.
My friend’s kayak is more than just oil-canned, it is warped, literally deformed so that the keel-line is twisted inches off center. Looks like a giant picked it up and squeezed and twisted it!
A search turned up this description of another method, using a heat lamp, oven mitt and ice pack. I expect her hull would have to be heated to just shy of meltdown to be able to reshape such a huge area. Have you ever used a heat lamp for your repairs?
That way you won’t have to tow me! 
