No, this ain't about seats, thank goodness. It's about hull bottoms and fiberglass warfare with limestone river rocks and saltwater oyster reefs (etc.). The problem, in a nutshell, is that Leslie and I are scraping the hell out of our boats! We're not overly worried about looks, but when gouges are going through to bare wood it gets our attention. Specifically, we're really concerned about the aft ends, which lose everything right down to bare wood for some two inches (see photo below). This took several trips to accomplish, btw, and duct tape patches have served 'til now... heh heh heh... (omigod)

We try to be careful when launching, recovering and beachng... but if I have to be more careful yet the boats will not be worth having! As chief builder I am in no panic; I shall just fix it and make it stronger. The question is how to make it stronger? For now I have merely added 'glass patches (see website, last entry, last page). I have thought about a second layer of 'glass, or carbon fiber, or Kevlar, etc. But nothing sounds just right... I need guidance!

The hulls are built using 6mm okoume for the bottom panels, 4mm for the balance. Raka 127/350 epoxy and Raka 5 oz cloth clad the exterior of the hulls.

Thanks,

Kurt & Leslie

Note: the photo doesn't show the bare wood clearly, as the wound is impregnated with river sand. But the white, scraped up looking glass is actually where the cloth ends and bare wood begins. Ouch.