Ok…please forgive my new bee question here.
I have had my plastic cape horn 15 for about two months now. I love it…use it all the time etc…
I baby it…take great care of it…BUT…
every time I get it home…look on the bottom …there are freeking more and more and more and more cosmetic scratches.
This is normal right…I know it is soft plastic…but…come on!
Thanks!
Cosmetic is the word. Get over it
and enjoy your boat.
Stop
using it any they will not get any worse!
think of them as artifacts,
serving to document your adventures. 
Scars
I just got back from a trip down the Housatonic River today and I felt the same way looking at the hull of my boat but quickly realized that these can be documentations of my trips like the previous poster stated. Would I be going overboard marking the biggest gashes I’ve made with the name of the river I got it from?
it gets worse
As you move into composite boats. You think you’ll be a more carefull paddler, you think you’ll only use it in deeper water…
Get used to the emblems of use. I tell myself all too often that I did not buy it to hang it on the wall.
Good luck paddling on,
T
hmmm, now that’s kind of a cool idea
– Last Updated: Jun-18-06 11:20 PM EST –
take a rubbing of your hull after each trip and label the new gorge...errr, gouges...after their respective waterways.
As stated above-
dont worry about scratches. Its just like putting mileage on your car. If you use it, it will happen.
Badges
They’re badges of honor. “This one is from the head on I had with a rock on the G.M., this one’s from Todd’s Run and that one’s from a rock garden on the L.M. I decided not to portage around…”. Each one tells a story.
Or think of them as giving your boat character, like beauty wrinkles.
Phreon
A scratched, gouged boat is a happy boat
– Last Updated: Jun-19-06 12:07 AM EST –
My nine year old Caribou is a VERY happy boat, and my beautiful wooden Arctic Hawk gets happier every time I take her out! :-)
When I wash my boats, I lovingly run my fingers along the scratches and gouges, and remember those happy moments. Unless there's real damage, severe enough to threaten the structural integrity of the boat, the scratches are like the weather worn face of an old fisherman; the story of his life is told by the character of his face. Don't ignore the scratches...celebrate them! :-)
Melissa
yur in serious need of a paradigm shift
Its not fine China, its a boat!. Yes we want things to look great and new for a long time. No, no,no. Not the way to look at it. Here is a little anecdote to help you see the light. This will get you thru the pain.
I was driving home throught my neighborhood and saw an avid female mountainbiker that I know, walking her dog. She looked up at my WAvesort Score on the roof of my truck, and smiled, “that looks well used”. She smiled approvingly and was very IMPRESSED. Need I say anything more Kayakmr!
(impressed!)
Got it backwards
A good starting big water boat should baby you - let you screw up here and there and not send you swimming for every little mistake. Not the other way around.
“Babying” A Boat Is Almost A Sure
– Last Updated: Jun-19-06 7:56 AM EST –
sign that someone is new to the sport... :)
The more you go out in interesting stuff, the more your boat will get scuffed up. You'll also notice that your thinking will shift from being concerned how a boat looks more to how it performs...
sing
use a sander
– Last Updated: Jun-19-06 9:45 AM EST –
and go from extremely coarse paper down to fine paper ending with polishing compound...
Another time honored fix is to take a torch and melt them back to flatness, but remember it is a fine line between just enough heat and too much...
but i would go with the sander, maybe a random orbital or a belt, it would result in an even surface as smooth as a babies bottom
And all of you should be ashamed that you are encouraging him to paddle a shabbie looking boat.We all know how inefficient a scratched bottom on a poly boat can be. Must shave off what, at least a good hundreth of a mile per hour off top end...
;)
The foibles of paddling
Read your post, had to smile…
was there did that…
Now I’m actually looking for a scratched up touring kayak to practive S&R and rentrys with.
I got the same replies
I posted about my pamlico 140’s scratches, and I now know it is all normal. It’s got the same Gen-2 plastic I think. But the point is they are no big deal. Rental and demo kayaks have millions of scratches. They just happen. I saw a EMS rental sundance 2 kayak at dowdy lake and it had lots of scrathes.
When you get to the average age of
posters here(46) you’ll have a few dings and scratches your own self.
Funny thing happened when I bought
my kevlar Extreme. I arrived at the boat shop and began to drool over my brand new boat when I noticed a golf-ball sized DENT in the HULL!!! I guess the guys at the shop could tell something was wrong as my face went paper-white. All I could do was point at it, speechless. The guy says, “oh, that’s on the bottom, it will be in the water…” All I could think was “that’s gonna possibly slow me down .001 mph!!!”
Anyway, they said the “boat truck” broke down in FL and the excessive heat must have allowed the dent to form under pressure from another boat or something. I just blasted it with a hair dryer when I got home and it was gone in about 15 min.
Thanks for the replies…=)
give it to someone else
When I bought my brand new kevlar, beautiful red gel-coated boat, I took it to a nice deep lake to try it out and take photos. Then I gave it to two friends who had never been in a canoe before.
I never worry about my scracthes…they are ALL from them…forever. I can’t screw it up, they did it all for me.
Liveoutside