having one’s navel “remodeled” is not as cringeworthy as the tales of vain fashionistas who reportedly have had their little toes surgically reduced or removed to enable them to wear pointy-toed pumps. Besides, a whole generation of young millennial teens had their navel perimeters pierced (including, I am sad to say, some of my own young relatives.)
My very conservative daughter just got a tattoo at 42. It is small and nicely done but …
Not to stray from the navel gazing, but to get back to the poly Nordkapp–there is a test that I do on plastic boats that I think is prudent. With the boat sitting on the ground I go to one end of the boat and very slowly lift while watching to see how rigid the boat is by gauging (eyeballing) the amount of flex in the boat. All of the polyethylene Valley boats I have checked are very flexible. For me, flexible is not a desirable trait. I haven’t checked any of the Valley boats lately, so maybe they have tightened them up. Compare a poly boat to a well built composite boat and you will see a considerable difference. You should see no flex at all in a composite boat.
My WS poly boats have no detectable sag, but they are heavy.
I just noticed, while hauling my kayaks in from the yard to stash in the basement, that the hole in the stern tip of my Venture Easky looks just as raggedy as the one in Gorsescent’s Nordkapp. Appears that they routed it out but not very carefully. I never really looked that closely at it (and still don’t care now that I have seen it). The rest of the kayak is very well finished (at least it was before I subjected it to 8 years of hairy dock rash), even meticulous, but apparently that particular penetration is not on their manufacturing priority list for tidying up. As I said before, if a rudder is mounted on it, nobody is going to see that anyway.
It’s a flag holder…
May be they hang them in factory from the holes
@gorsescent@yahoo.co.jp said:
I cannot write the name of the manufacturer here because I don’t want to be sued by it. Suffice it to say, it’s one of the most famous kayaks in the history of the industry.
Must be a Pamlico 140…
Must be a Pamlico 140…
Do you know if the same thing happens with polyethylene kayaks manufactured by Wilderness Systems?
Magooch, you said: “With the boat sitting on the ground I go to one end of the boat and very slowly lift while watching to see how rigid the boat is by gauging (eyeballing) the amount of flex in the boat. All of the polyethylene Valley boats I have checked are very flexible.” I have a 2001 Avocet. It seems very rigid. I did your test, but maybe my inexperienced eye could not detect what you can. Does your comment apply to older poly Valley boats too? Just curious. Thanks.
I don’t know if Valley has made changes over the years, but I suspect their poly boats are about the same as always. By the way, the flexiness of polyethylene boats is not exclusive to Valley. One of my boats is a Current designs Sirocco and it too has a little flex. My guess is that the shorter the boat, the less flex.
I haven’t tried this test with a lot of boats and the only reason I mentioned the Valley boats is because I was interested and the dealer had some of them on racks that made them very easy to check. Yeah, I know I said, " with the boat sitting on the ground", but now that I think about it, a boat sitting in a rack that is about eye level might be the easiest for most people–including me.
The ambient temperature has a big effect here. In the hot summer sun most poly boats turn to mush, some more than others. In the winter there’s not much flex to be had, and can be a bad thing if you run it into a rock.
OK, thanks!
Also when a boats in water the poly is stiffer being cooled by the water.