Not quite . Bella, the chew everything beast , got my old Tilley and shredded it.
It had already been replaced by Tilley because the crown had been UVd to death but it was still a good gardening hat.
Time for a trip to the general store. To tolerate the experience of a lesser hat, let alone risking the chance of being seen in one would be…tragic!
I might be perceived as a commoner! I have found one wide brim hat that fits but it’s a little warm ; a Seattle Sombrero.
String, I’ve been gone from here for something like seven years, and yet when I saw the title of your post I knew it had been written by you!
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Hard to believe it’s been that long.
Maybe it hasn’t been that long. It’s been a number of years, though, and I always underestimate how much time has gone by in such cases, so with both of those factors in mind, I guessed at seven.
Elsewhere on this forum we are treated to pictures of beautiful paddling venues, all kinds of boats on all kinds of cars (even box trucks!), faithful paddling dogs, and every kind of paddle craft imaginable. I’m guessing that most of us also have a favorite paddling hat or two.
Just for laughs, let’s see some pictures of yours, whether new or well traveled, plain or fancy, Bella-approved or not (sorry @string) !
Here’s one of mine. It’s from LL Bean many years ago when we placed orders by filling out a form that came with the catalog and sent it off by US Mail. 
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String look on ebay for your next Tilly.
I have found several there, last one under $20.
I got my Tilley at my local thrift shop for under $5. Great hat, no picture available right now.
You know a Tilly seems like an expensive hat, but I’m on the fourth Tilly from the first purchase, twenty some years ago. The fourth hat is giving out between brim and crown.
I only wear this hat kayaking, in rain or on the tractor in winter (Florida) when the canopy isn’t installed. It’s hot down here. Most fail in similar fashion. Especially in the washing machine. This only hand washed.
If my second wears out I’m sure they’ll give me another.
Look at Shelta Hats for a possible replacement. I prefer Shelta over Tilley due to brim stiffness. In high wind, the brim of the Shelta stays put. My Tilley’s brim tends to flop up. The Tilley is warmer, so it gets used mainly in the winter now.
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We found grey/blue Tilleys at Sierra Trading post for less than half retail.
Ahh, the formidable at fifty Yankee Doodle Macaroni Maine Moose Hunter. Uncornered model, no less. Last seen (unfeathered, of course), donned by Ned Beatty, just prior to his full emulsion in the Tallulah. Pity he lost it. NO ONE’s ever been made to squeal like a pig whilst displaying the bravado necessary to Atlas-up beneath one of these fine chapeaus.
Now, a Tilley??? That’s a whole 'nother, 400-threads of love/hate matter. (Some would say give the dog a bone!) At least, it was in a P-Netted galaxy, long, long ago and far, far away. Oh! And DON"T EVER dare replace that fine feather you have with an orange peel, or coffee grind embedded band!
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The hat has outlived many feathers. This one will not likely be the last.
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You have been here a long time my friend. I bet those fire ant’s millions of progeny still have a taste for citrus.
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I realized I had failed to pack a hat on an out-of-town trip. I was going to be out in the sun for some hours. I went to a Walmart and bought an inexpensive hat and a bottle of sunscreen. I wore sunglasses so as not to be recognized by the paparazzi in my un-jaunty Walmart wear. The important thing: I didn’t burn a bit.
edit: I guess you could call them sunglasses. In truth they were cardboard solar eclipse viewing glasses. Super Sunglasses.
I lost my hat’s strap and emailed Tilley to ask if I could buy a replacement. They sent me one for free. So I’m team Tilley.
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Life’s the Mad Hatter.
Growing up here along the Chesapeake, back in the 60’s as a pre-teen I encountered losts of people (males, mostly) that every summer sported some ridiculously color 'n pattern printed bucket hats. Round here folks called them, “Smith Island” hats. To me they just seemed to conjure the image of some lanky buffoon running towards a burly old salt yelling, “Skipper! Skipper!” or “Professor! MaryAnn!” BUT, I kept my mouth closed. (Not being a good boxer, it’s probably how I kept all my teeth.)
Later, in my twenties, I got to visit Smith Island, down there in the Chessy off of the Eastern Shore’s Crisfield. Most of the burly old salts I encountered down there were sporting baseball hats with barely legible brand names of gun or farm machinery manufacturers. Barely because the hats, by all outward appearances had been as well oiled as the prop shafts and diesel engines of their boats. Or maybe it was they’d been used as bait within the crab pots when chicken necks were scarce? Anyway, if those old, burly salts had been wearing oily Smith Island buckets, I’d a still kept my mouth shut, as I was working on that teeth retention streak I had, through good fortune, and a few duckhead moments, brought forth through my teens.
You see, I’ve learned, like as saged in that old chestnut about book covers, to not openly judge men nor women per their choices in head fashion. Oh, mind you, there have been those times whilst watching that annual parade of noggin fruit bowls and funerary floral arrangements known as the Kentucky Derby where my tongue was bleedin’ profusely. But then I just imagine if ole no-name cowboy Clint had decided to palely ride into town wearing a bowler (or even one of those Carmen Miranda banana baskets) the ungodly additions to the body count, per impertinence of mouthy gunslingers, town ruffians, or snarky dandies.
HOWEVER, if there is any thread of wisdom that I’ve acquired with regards to the ownership of a hat, based on decades of futile gale-force exodus attempts, and upon occasions of watching desperate reaches for chapeau sinkers turning into aggressive Sea Hunt episodes (bubbles and all), it is this:
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