Weight mystery solved! I was doing a little work on this boat the night before last, cutting a new strip of naugahide to put over the stern where the existing strip was worn out and peeling. I took the old strip off and noticed the outer fabric on the hull was not attached well, so I peeled that back a bit.

Surprise! I found the entire hull had been covered over with an additional layer of material. I peeled the whole thing off (was not attched well at all) and weighed it -- 15 lbs! So the hull had *3* layers of naugahide - no wonder it was so heavy! I also discovered the numerous patches in the original.

Anyway, the outside of the original skin is unrecoverable. It's covered with the adhesive that someone tried to use to bond the extra layer of naugahide. And even were I able to remove it, the original skin is stained from the adhesive besides having all the crude patches that caused someone to cover it in the first place.

So I'm leaning more towards discarding the original covering altogether, repairing, replacing, and refinishing all the wood, and then going with the dacron covering. But probably not until this winter now.

-- Dave