stretching a rubber rand

[Walsh]

I'm 99% an open boater.

A couple of years back I purchased an ex-CYA Necky Switch c1 for the handsome price of $100 and a twelve-pack. I was pretty jazzed about it, and ended up ordering a rather expensive custom skirt - S/M tunnel L cockpit Mountain Surf skirt with the Bombproof rand.

Bottom line, I never learned to use that boat comfortably. I recently was given a mostly-outfitted Big EZ that fits me much more comfortably. I finally got the skirt onto the cockpit rim with a little bit of 303 and several minutes of cussing.

If I leave the skirt on the boat for a while, will it stretch adequately? Or am I better served trying to sell the skirt and reinvest in one that was designed to fit the larger cockpit?

[ezwater]

My guess is that the rand will not stretch. Neither bungee skirts nor dense rubber rand skirts are inclined to stretch, so the time to get tension right is at the time of purchase. Last couple of times I shopped for a skirt, I took the boats to NOC and parked them on the walk outside. Then with consent of staff, I took the skirts down from the 2nd floor to the boats and tried them on the rim and on my midsection.

An alternative is to find someone who has the same skirt on the same or a very similar boat, and proceed on their recommendation.

If you trust the maker's recommendations, they will often be right, but occasionally very wrong. In part it's a matter of taste. Some like an extremely tight rand, and some like a rand where they don't need a bankside committee to help get it on the boat.

[agmazzuckelli]

I had an IR Rand skirt and it fit my torso well and fit well on the rim when I got it on, but I usually could not get it on by myself. I just couldn't stretch it out. I tried stretching it out but those rand skirts are tough. In the end I just decided to sell that skirt and used the money to buy a Snapdragon reinforced bungee that was still stiff but stretches enough that I can get it on my rim.