Archive for the ‘Repairs & Modifications’ Category

Over the last couple days I took a bit of time to fashion out a new back support for my the Romany I’ve been working on recently. You may remember I was just about ready to give it away.  Well, after repairing a hole & going after all the weird grey gelcoat patches, and now adding a nice comfortable back support it’s starting to turn into a boat worth owning.  Read the rest of this entry »

I said, “Just tell me something before it’s too late and we’re gone
I mean just how safe is this boat we’ll be on?” – Sting

Today my workload is a bit heavy, not least of which is that I need to commit to a kayak to take to the Door County Sea Kayak Symposium coming up in about a week.  As usual, the level heads of friends, well-wishers, readers & psychologists have convinced me that doing some repairs on my old NDK kayaks is probably a better choice (and more valuable) than selling them off for something new, and maybe not so tough.   Read the rest of this entry »

Now, as much as I love my Rockpool Alaw Bach, it’s not a kayak I would use for a smash & crash weekend. So with my ACA coaching re-certification coming up this weekend, I’ve been spending time bringing my old warhorse back to life.  Yeah, the old NDK Explorer has more gel coat cracks than I’d ever reasonably get out, and the white hull will never again be truly white, but it’s still the only kayak I’ve ever had that I don’t fear dragging another fully loaded kayak across or crash landing on a break wall.  (I have as a matter of fact) Read the rest of this entry »

My old warhorse has seen better days.  It’s been some years now since I bought my 1996 Nigel Dennis Romany Explorer used at Rutabaga in Madison, WI.  I’ll never forget how scary it felt to drop the $1500 back then on of all things, a kayak! Now after years of paddling, some harsh landings, intimating crashes, and just years of  sitting out under the Midwest sun, the warhorse was in desperate need of care.

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Your skin
Oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
– coldplay

Let me begin today’s story by saying again, I’m not a “Greenland” kayaker.    Whew, I’m glad THAT’s out the way…. Which brings me to yesterday when I drove over to Milwaukee to take a look at my friend Silbs skin-on-frame kayak. The boat is a bit special, at least to me, in that he built the kayak himself in 2005 at a class with Mark Rogers of Superior Kayaks.  Honestly I knew I’d buy it.. Well, if I fit.

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Strap yourself to a tree with roots
You aint going nowhere.
– dylan

This lovely bit of artwork is what you get when you take a picture of the flooded fifth hatch in your Scorpio. It’s not as if I left the cover off or anything.  It simply fills (and I mean fills) with water if I roll the kayak.  I don’t believe it’s the kayak.  I think it’s the hatch cover.  Let me tell you why…

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“There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth”
- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Ok, so here’s something different.  I noticed this P&H Kayak while checking out boats at the Door County Sea Kayaking Symposium.  The keel strip is all bumpy.  Just like that paint job you so often see over drywall.  I get this.  It makes gripping and carrying a wet slippery kayak much easier AND protects the boat just like a strip is supposed to do.  I’m sure too that it’s going to give some Uber kayaker hydrodynamic fits… (and you thought plastic vs glass was bad).  Oh, and did I mention that KB posted on Twitter today that P & H has a new kayak coming down the line.  He also said I would be especially jazzed by it…Really? It has a cup holder?