Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 13:44:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kirk Olsen <kolsen@imagelan.com>
To: baidarka <baidarka@lists.intelenet.net>
Subject: baidarka try before you skin
If there was one thing I learned from this past weekend north east skin boat
gathering it's try your boat and make sure you fit, comfortably, before you
put the skin on.
One of the attendees declared his boat out of commission on saturday after
trying some of the other craft and deciding his deck beam (at the front of
the cockpit) was just too big to exit safely. Plus it wasn't comfortable
while he was in the boat. Another attendee had built the same boat,
from Wolfgang's book, had similar problems and had already rebuilt his boat.
It's a whole lot easier to change stuff while the skin is off than to tear
off the skin, rebuild the boat, and put a skin back on..
We also got the verdict on the use of hemp as a skin, based on a sample
size of 1. The hemp fabric stretches, even after you get it on the boat, I
believe the boat was reskinned without ever putting a finish on the hemp.
kirk