C-Forum

Not a happy occasion. I found Thursday that the flagship of Ga Tech's instructional fleet, a newish Mikey-outfitted Ocoee, was involved in a vehicular accident while being transported from one side of the rec center to the other for a student activities fair. It now needs two gunwales and a rear thwart.

I've contacted Bell, and they may be able to find an efficient way to get a pair of factory gunwales to Atlanta. If this fails, however, is there a semi-local source of generic vinyl gunwales?

In anticipation of the inevitable comments, it's part of an instructional fleet, so woodwork is out of the question. Thanks for any input.

Jon, did you try contacting Richard @ Mohawk? They're not very far away...you could pick them up on a weekend and hit the Ocoee in the same day.

Jon:

Mohawk does have good ones, and they can also supply the aluminum inserts if you want some more rigidity (at least the Ft. Smith shop has offered such.)

al

maybe you might find a trashed Ocoee someone is selling at NOC's sale weekend... and just pull the gunwalls off it... which would also give you a few other spare parts like deckplates or hardware.

you know the sort of boat i'm talkin' about? the kind that needs so much hull patching it's almost not worth it to purchase unless you're REALLY good at major hull repair work...?

In my conversations with Mohawk, gunwales can be purchased quite cheaply, it is the shipping that is hopelessly expensive.

Pick them up in the shop or they might bring em down if they're headed that way.

Sunrift Adventures is the opposite direction, but were impressively stocked with canoe hardware. They might have to special order gunwales, but are one of the few places I would trust to know what you're talking about and get it right.

Mohawk is doing a Demo Days thing at the Nantahala in less than 2 weeks. Maybe they'd be willing to bring a set of gunwales with them. Worth asking.

If all other options fail, you are welcome to the vinyl gunnels and decks from a 2003 Dagger Ocoee at no cost- other than you pay the shipping cost from Maine. I would also be pleased to deliver at ALF 2012 in Lenoir City.

Simply collecting dust amongst my vast supply of Dagger Ocoees...

I'm at the beach

Keep in mind the Mohawk gunwale has a wider outwale, the Bell gunwale has a wider inwale, not sure if this would affect your desired thwart length (the width difference really would be negligible, but distance from end of thwart to boat hole may matter)

I'm planning on removing plastic gunwales from a brand new Ocoee sometime in the next month or two... make me an offer and I'll pop them off this weekend.

Think I also have some used Viper rails at work, if ithey're long enough you can have them for shipping.

I'd take Beach's offer but it shipping from Maine is too much for you, I will be putting wood on a Dagger Ocoee some time this winter. If you can wait it out, you can have the vinyl gunnels from that one,

We have stacks and stacks of gunnel

eddyhops wrote:Keep in mind the Mohawk gunwale has a wider outwale, the Bell gunwale has a wider inwale, not sure if this would affect your desired thwart length (the width difference really would be negligible, but distance from end of thwart to boat hole may matter)

Could you just put them on backwards, so the wider part is on the inside?