I finally had the opportunity to get the first scratches in my Outer Island, which is covered with AwlBrite Plus 2-part polyurethane clearcoat. I went up to the Mackinac Bridge area (which connects the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan) for the 4th of July weekend, and there are more rocky beaches up there than there are in Holland, MI, along the southeastern part of Lake Michigan where I live.

I'm not too surprised, but a bit disheartened, to say that 2-part poly is not the magic, unscratchable boat coating. The Great Lakes have been way down in the last few years, and there are more rocks close to the surface to scratch your boat on. All the scratches I put on this weekend were done by rather benign means -- just a little scraping in waters that were a little too shallow. It was a farily calm weekend wind-wise, so I didn't park my kayak on top of any boulders. The scratches in the 2-part poly look exactly the same as those on my Arctic Tern, which was varnished with Z-Spar Flagship. The scratches are noticeably shallower in the polyurethane, but they look the same as those in varnish in terms of width and whiteness.

So I guess I may be changing my tune on bright-finished kayaks -- varnish is probably good enough. I'll have to see how the deck fairs over the course of the summer. I had a fair amount of scratches on my Tern under the deck bungees where I took a water bottle in and out, and had a nice, long scratch on the aft deck from the tip of my paddle during rolling practice last fall. We'll see if the poly minimizes these smaller scratches.

I think I would still use 2-part polyurethane if I were to be painting the hull, though. Betsie Bay Kayaks uses white AwlGrip on their hulls and they seem to take abuse as well as a fiberglass gel-coat.

I'm done building until next fall, so I can concentrate on adding more scratches...

Dean