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scamlin

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  1. @scamlin Liz: If I remember, that's Gene Cosley's Nordkapp which had a kevlar deck and hull, so I'm guessing that while some fibres are snapped, most will have just flexed. From the photos, the cracks are well behind the bulkhead and easily accessible from the cockpit--so a repair like that is very doable. I should know. My story goes back to 1997 on Peaks Island. It was fading dusk at The Landing where our group was deep in contemplation with Mr. Bergh about the lessons of the week. It is possible more than one craft brew was involved. Suddenly, we noticed the ferry arriving from Portland. Knowing I had a long drive back to MA, Tom gave me a quick ride up to Luther Street to retrieve my car, with my 1990 vintage kevlar Arluk III on the roof rack...securely tied down bow and stern. While the Peaks Island ferry take cars, it doesn't take long to load so I knew I was tight on time. It's quick trip to the wharf, but when I arrived it looked like all the cars were onboard except mine. I was eager to make it so headed down the ramp with some urgency, perhaps too much. Floodlights on the dark ramp played havoc with depth perception, a bad mix of glare, shadows and tunnel vision. The bad news was that there was a cable across the bottom of the ramp about mid-bowline--which I discovered only after the bow of my boat dipped down to touch the hood. The good news was that this fortuitous omen prompted me to apply the brakes, which along with the cable prevented me from going over the edge to the rocks 15+ feet below the now-retracted ramp. When I got out to inspect my boat and then looked down, I realised how close to disaster I came. A cracked kayak would have been the least of my worries. If I remember correctly, the dock attendant offered an incisive assessment of my intelligence and some pointed advice . If I also remember, Tom was relatively measured and supportive, no doubt due to his deep commitment to experiential learning. He offered to repair the boat, so we offloaded it to his racks and went back to The Landing for a subdued debrief while waiting for the late ferry. A couple of weeks later, I went up to retrieve the Arluk III. The layup had cracked on the sides like yours, but the deck and bottom were fine. So the patches were relatively small in size and if I remember included only one layer of kevlar cloth on the inside. The idea was to maintain the fairly flexible layup. Good as gold and never gave me any problems--though it is true it has lived under the cottage in Ipswich for the past 20 years once Tom sold me the Explorer. So, Liz, unless there is a wider de-lamination either side of the cracks, there is a good chance it's a simple repair. I believe Valley used a baked epoxy layup, so your Nordkapp may be stiffer than the admittedly low-tech early Necky build (the keel is stiffened by a glassed-in 1/2" wooden dowel). So it is possible your Nordkapp didn't flex like mine and has more cracks or de-lamination. In in any case, it will be easier to fix than trying to match the colour of the gelcoat . The English Oak over our deck is just now leafing out, the fantails and silvereyes are making a racket, and I turned my herb garden under on Sunday, so maybe we'll get the kayaks in the water soon. After a brief return to lock down in August, COVID levels are stepping down and we're close to eliminating community transmission again here in New Zealand. So hoping summer will be pretty relaxed socially. We did miss our New England summer, friends and family this year. Despite the 2020ness of it all, it's home. Ngā Mihi . Mā Te Wā. Scott
  2. Below is a link to a video just posted on our local KASK (Kiwi Association of Sea Kayakers) newsletter. It's actually a couple of Canadian guides (you can tell by lack of rudders) who are experimenting how to observe the 2 metre distance while performing assisted rescues. You can debate the validity of the techniques, but might be an interesting challenge to test.
  3. Paul: Filters are over-rated. Cheers, Scott
  4. Christopher: That was Richard Najarian. I think we did it at least two years in a row, maybe three. And Brian brought brought down half his shop tools from N.H. Cheers, Scott
  5. Rob: The eastern shore of Rutherford Island down to Shipley Point makes for a nice Maine coast paddle and a bit of rock garden play especially if you include the islets and ledges down to Thrumcap Island. Whether it's protected or not depends on the wind. We paddled out of East Boothbay, across to the Gut at the top of Rutherford and down--retracing the route on the way back. There is a current at the Gut so check the tides. For a more protected route, the western shore of Rutherford includes Christmas Cove which is picturesque and much more protected. The wester shore itself can be nice but expect some current as it's the Damriscotta River and can be lively in a southerly against the tide. Ebb tides run a bit above 1 knot. Happy paddling, Scott
  6. Hmmm. What boat is it? Cockpit esp. the knee braces desin (only one left) as well as hatch straps and plastic pad-eyes reminds of a Necky Arluk III, but they had a sharp peak in the deck. Valley Nordkapp had the skinny nose, but cockpit was not this large. Current Design Solstice did not taper this much to the bow, and the knee braces were longer. Any guesses? Scott
  7. Cathy: Your summary is the normal explanation and one I've offered many times. I do, however, remember a British coach on Peaks Island many years ago suggesting it was more complicated: the shorter water length of a edged boat definitely makes it easier to turn--so the force of the sweep stroke on the outside of the turn would have a turning effect regardless of the direction of the edging. He had us try it both ways: a sweep stroke with edging on both sides. I remember the results were ambiguous: while it felt more awkward to edge towards the turn while sweeping on the other side, the boat still turned almost as well. On the other hand, many of us unconsciously and seamlessly make course corrections under way by edging in the conventional way to avoid corrective sweep strokes. So which is the bigger factor: edging or the short water line? I still edge on the outside, but concluded that it's more complicated than the conventional explanation--like much about kayaks moving through water. Cheers, Scott
  8. Joseph: The tool that might meet your need is a plastic welding gun--small hot air gun with tips that you can feed plastic rod through to do the repair. For example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1500W-Hot-Air-Torch-Plastic-Welding-Gun-Welder-Pistol-Speed-Nozzle-Roller-/252813580652?hash=item3adcdd196c:g:vw0AAOSw4A5YyKOS Many others on the market. Good luck. Scott
  9. Agree with Suz: stackers are the easiest--and likely cheapest. When needed I put three full size boats on edge on a 48" Yakima bar with one stacker offset one third of the way to one side. Two boats against the stacker, and the third one spoons with the center boat--may need some strategic bits of padding if you are fussy about the finish on your boat. No saddles or J-racks to get in the way of loading the center boat. Three boats are about the limit: most racks have a factory limit of 150 lbs--and that doesn't include the wind load Suz mentions which is likely to be a bit more than the auto manufacturer plans on you having up top. Cheers, Scott
  10. Al: When we were in Shetland in 2004, our rental car had no racks so we improvised a solution that did not require buying new gear. We had brought regular gray foam saddles: we placed directly on top of the roof and ran a long strap over the boat and through the inside of the car side-to-side. No need to fix them to the roof: the closed doors kept the straps in place. After a learning event at speed, however, we found it necessary to take a turn around the deck line with the strap fore and aft to maintain the boat's directional stability e.g. keep it from skating askew in the wind. We also took a turn around the rails on the vehicle that had them to keep the strap in place, but the vehicle without rails didn't seem to have issues. Worked a charm for two boats per vehicle over the two weeks we were there--and we did a fair amount of driving, albeit not at high speeds given typical Shetland roads. There was one problem: the day that two of our party elected to put into a sandy beach in Bay of Scousburgh near Loch Spigge and remain there due to Force 5 winds. After crossing the tombolo at St. Ninian's Isle and paddling north to the put in, we retrieved them but didn't get quite all the sand off the hulls before hoisting the boats onto our inprovised racks. Beach sand under the foam cradles proved to be an effective abrasive so the roof had a shiny patch when we returned them to the rental agency. You could have the same issue with any solution such as the Malone inflatables. Cheers, Scott
  11. Maybe NSPN should start a new interest group modeled on the Estonians.....would be a good year to give it a try. Scott
  12. You could try contacting the Association to see if they would accommodate you out of season--not unreasonable given your low footprint. Can't hurt to ask.
  13. July 4 weekend in 1993, I borrowed my sister's old Lincoln canoe, and decided to take my new girl friend camping on an island in Maine. Had done some canoeing in the big lakes in eastern Maine, but never on the ocean. I really had no plan: someone in Portland suggested launching at the Cousins Island bridge, and someone at the put in suggested camping at a nearby island in Casco Bay. So we launched and when i could no longer turn the boat into the wind, we landed on the nearest downwind island, pulled the boat and our gear up a 12' cliff and--true confessions--pirate camped for three days under a spreading oak tree with wild roses all around until the wind died down. That last day, July 4, we circumnavigated Cheabague on the way to the take out and as we rounded the eastern end, a young woman in a red kayak glided across the shallows and past us. Pure magic to my eyes and I said to myself, I gotta do that. Still in graduate school at that point, no money, so the dream was deferred but Beth gave me John Dowd's Sea Kayaking: A Manual for Long Distance Touring for Christmas that year, thinking it might be fun to take a half day trip someday. A dozen books, one obsession and about three years later in March 1997, I bought a copy of Tasmin's Atlantic Coastal Kayak, and following John Dowd's west coast advice found a used Necky Arluk III listed in CT. After raiding four or five ATM machines, I drove down with the cash to pick up my new boat. The next day, I just had to try it out in blue jeans on a local pond where the ice had recently gone out and somehow did not capsize. Beth and I took our first lesson from Ann Carroll who ran Far Horizons, a kayak outfitter and B&B on the Harraseeket River in South Freeport. She put me in Derek Hutchinson's personal boat, a Gulfstream in British Racing Green with his name painted in yellow just below the cockpit rim. Derek stored his US boats with the Carrolls who had trained with him. I think I capsized it about 200 yards off the dock and thus began my first lesson in rescues. After that, I was shopping for a paddle jacket at REI in Reading, and got talking to the salesperson (Bob ??? who used to guide or operate a kayak business on the north shore). When he heard of my eagerness to learn, said there was only one place to go: Peaks Island. A week or two later, June 1997, we were two out of four on Peaks Island for one of Tom Bergh's early season Fast Track classes. It was one of the years he did not have use of the big boathouse after another spat with the owner, so we did the class at his kitchen table and off of a trailer. Four day later, my life had pretty much changed. Took countless classes there over the years and eventually ended up buying a couple of NDK boats off him to round out the fleet. One of them was a new yellow Romany that I had on my roofrack as I waited to pick up Beth from work in Harvard Square in summer 1998. A friendly woman approached to ask the make of the boat as i stood on the sidewalk. After the conversation with Erica Bernstein, she told me about this email group on the North Shore and suggested i go paddling with them. I honestly don't remember the first paddle with them, unless it was the one out of Riverhead Beach. The sea was running a bit in outer Marblehead Harbour and I remember being light-headed and a bit terrorized by the 4 or 5 foot swell. Big enough that when it broke over Chris Perkin's head on the Marblehead side and he capsized, then I first witnessed a combat roll. I also remember Bob Burnett's first trip leader training in 1999. The on water session was scheduled for Pavilion Beach on Great Neck but the forecast for that April day was gusts to 40 kts, so Bob wisely relocated the class to the Ipswich River on Topsfield Road. Jed, John Leonard, and other early members were in the class. We paddled up against the spring current, out of the winds, and perhaps into the history of the club.
  14. David: Great review for the OR Hydroseal-Drycomp bag, but I checked Amazon for the product, not available. Checked OR's website, not longer made. (They do have some fancy compression dry bags with permeable fabric, yada, yada.) Guess you could replicate the original with a non-dry compression sack and a separate, appropriate sized drybag. Scott
  15. Lorrie: Was on an extended trip when this was posted so apologies for the late reply. Brian suggested putting a float onto each blade of a spare paddle and lashing it to the aft deck. Can work but takes time, rigging and may not be secure. And I'd think it would be easily knocked askew in any kind of chop or wind waves. The way I've seen it used is simple: put the float-equipped paddle in the hands of the assisted paddler. Even a groggy paddler can keep the paddle more or less level and do low-effort bracing with the floats. Quick to deploy, easy to recover from waves knocking floats round, and keeps the paddler involved. Of course, if the paddler is really out of it and can't hold the paddle, you're back to the lashed approach or as Brian says, rafting up. Best, Scott
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