Subject: RE: baidarka Permanent foam flotation?
From: David Keefe (lamoille@sover.net)
Date: Fri May 12 2000 - 09:11:42 EDT
Two more foam ideas:
There's a foam commonly used as packing for electronics and
other heavy, valuable stuff. It's called Ethafoam (a brand name, I
presume). It's white, but it's not the expanded polystyrene (coffee
cup) stuff. You can recognize it by the texture, which is like a very
dense and hard sponge. It's not brittle like the pink or blue
extruded polystyrene used as building insulation. This foam is
closed cell and will not absorb water. It's very tough, and can
withstand repeated beatings. You can even stab it repeatedly and
it doesn't seem to mind much.
They sell this foam at a premium price in some paddle shops; it's
almost as costly as minicell foam, but you can get it for free if you
can scrounge it as packing. It will be in odd-shaped pieces. You
can glue pieces together with contact cement.
The second idea is: How about using your custom-fitted stuff
sacks (waterproof or not) as floatation by filling them with
something like bubble-wrap or small pieces of Ethafoam? I just got
done cutting a bunch of Ethafoam into one-inch cubes to fill the
sacks with when I'm not carrying camping stuff in them. This
would allow you to easily remove the floatation to promote drying
between uses. I must confess I don't know how well this works
yet; I'm hoping to launch my new boat sometime in the next two
weeks.
By the way, how do you get stuff sacks out to the ends of the
boat? I ran a small line from cockpit to bow and back before
skinning, thinking I could use it to pull the bag out to the end, since
it didn't seem to want to slide over the ribs when full and pushed.
Does this make sense?
On 11 May 00, at 14:38, Peter A. Chopelas wrote:
> Ralph wrote:
>
> I have used this for semi-permanent floatation in the
> ends of my semi-permanent (read "folding") boats for years. Installing
> floatation permanently does promote rot since it cuts down air circulation
> though. It's therefore advisable to restrict it to occupy the space
> actually
> within the frame, leaving at least a narrow gap between the foam and the
> skin
> for air to pass. The latter has the added benefit of allowing normal
> flexing
> of the skin.
>
>
> Ralph,
>
>
> Thanks for the precaution, this has already occurred to me. I used bath
> tub caulk to "glue" the foam to the inside of the frame prior to skinning.
> I left plenty of room between the skin and foam so I can "wash" out any
> sand or debris that could get caught and I only installed it in the upper
> half of the forward and aft area of the bow and stern. I was thinking that
> putting it in the upper half only would assist in keeping a swamped kayak
> up right, as well as keeping small objects from getting wedged up in the
> bow or stern.
>
> Peter
>
>
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David Keefe
Vermont Energy Investment Corp.
255 S. Champlain Street
Burlington, Vermont 05401
802-658-6060 x 1066
Lamoille@sover.net
home office phone 802-849-6399
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