Structural Integrity Is Often On the Rocks
(or The Meta-Conglomerate Schist Has Hit the Man)
With I before T
thenst adding end E,
and epoxy one moxies midst rock.
But light for lithe host
now sits near compost,
“I-I-I,” and “E-Gad!” dropped in shock.
Mannnn, that’s a beautiful boat, and I can’t imagine how some boat repair shop’s able composite repair worker is going to access those tight, inner rounded spaces to repair the torn aramid fabric. God bless the open canoe (save maybe some end tank and stem areas), where both sides can be more easily accessed, fared, fitted, epoxied and sanded. I had a falling 3" diameter Tulip Poplar limb impale the underside of my racked Wenonah Voyager Kevlar mid-hull about 1-1/2 years back, and that fairly clean hole (some cracked folding inward of about an additional inch beyond the 3" diameter hole) still required nearly a 1-foot square patch layer, plus smaller patches layered beneath along with foam core repair. I’m suspecting they may have to open that X-2 completely along its hull meets washdeck seam to lay in ample patching of those gashed holes.
Still, depending on the type of impact, the striking surfaces material and shape (Your schist may very), I’ve had some rather good success with my composite canoes running and poling through rocky streams and rivers. My 1991 Mad River Explorer in mostly S-Glass (with E-Glass and some other small fabric piecing in the stems - maybe carbon or an earlier version of some volcanic basalt-based fabric - even with its fine, v-keel, has withstood hundreds of miles of sandstone and gneiss gnawing and scraping at it, travelling along my home rivers of Patapsco, Gunpowder, and Potomac. A few significant bow quarter boulder-bangs, too. Recently, I, through my poor helmsmanship, slapped my Northstar B16 made of IXP (basically polyolefin polypropylene woven through aramid [(Kevlar]) down on a surface-pillowed boulder, coming through Owassee on PA’s Pine Creek. One seriously laden (near 370-lbs. of paddler and kit) Prospector-style hull, bow-backwards, rising its snout maybe a foot and a half upwards to THWUMP down mid-hull on I’d guess to be a table rock of perhaps a 2’ square top. Nearly broke my teeth! And I added about 7-to-10 gallons of water over the prow plate. (There’s 50-to-80 more pounds! Somehow, shocked chagrin plastered to my mug, with a low brace and some kind current providence, I spun some sort of eddy-out arc more than turn to river left, there to join my more adept canoeing cohorts, and bail, bail, bail. Later that evening, at camp, with the hull unloaded and beached on shore, I rolled her. There was some impressive new scrimshaw abstractions all over the greyish fabric’s belly, like Michael J. Fox had been handed a Bizzy Buzz Buzz and told, “Autograph seventeen times and you’ll get an Oscar.” BUT, no perforations past those clearcoat squirrel tracks.
And I’d guess there are still plenty of Kaz-made composite whitewater canoes plying frothy Class II to IV byways, their glass-kevlar surfaces adorned with far more etchings than Michael J. could ever produce per seeking Academy kudos. Still, there’s always that one rock, that one broach or badly boofed drop, waiting to tear asunder a hull’s integrity.
But at least in these last five years I’ve been able to take down from yard racks and sling up onto my truck rack at least two canoes that weigh-in at 33-lbs. or less (the IXP boat is a heavy composite, at 65 pounds, like that 11 Explorer glass boat i mentioned, but even that’s about 20 pounds lighter than the ancient Royalex - back when the sheeting was beefier - Uberbot, which 'bout near gave me an all-out, full-set vertebrae fusion, those last few years I hoisted her), and on my downside of sixties, my bad-hip and knees decrepit self has been quite thankful for that. Yes, the Uberbot could take most rocks head-on, and in passing make the rock look like it had been badly beaten in an alley fight with three Tupperware 40-gallon Brut models. But it was killing me, too, with each clean-n-jerk into portage-postured pain.
I get it, and I’m with ya. The sea and the wave break zone midst the granites and not-so-gneiss-guys of outrageous fortune is no place for an open canoe, composite or Rubbermaid (there’s a Charlie Wilson slight for all you petrol polymer paddlers), unless your one damn proficient outrigger trigger with your “Ama Gonna Get-you-thru” on spring-loaded 'iakos. And, apparently, no place to be in a composite kayak, if’n you’re gonna need 'em repaired, at affordable prices. Especially a finely formed composite, SOT, SINK (not, hopefully), or what-have-you!
Oh. Hey Eck! How’s that Kaz composite Outrage working for you so far. Bet it’s a lot nicer lifting her as opposed to its Royalex predecessor?
