Creeking in glass (OC-1)?

[Alden]

I knew that was Longboatin up there with Lengthy! Hades, don't be a stranger next time. I'll be out there Friday. Throw a guy a PBR here.

[Edit -- actually, scratch that. I can't make it Friday.]

Alden

[Yukon]

I prefer glass boats over royalex, faster, stiffer, and lighter. I have several canoes that are 12-15 years old. My tandem playboat a Clipper Merganser in Kevlar Duraflex started out its paddling career doing a 100 ft ender straped to the roof of my truck. It survived with a dented gunnel truck was a right off. I still paddle that boat and so do students - gets lots of abuse. Mind you I dont know the water you guys are paddling but I like my well built glass boats and wish there were more available

[ClassFive Boats]

I’ve paddled a lot of creeks in composite oc1 . Here are some of the things I have run into (no pun intended).

Impact wise it’s all about the thickness of the layup, which translates to weight. Smaller boats can be thicker/tougher than larger boats for a given weight. Longer boats generate more stress in the center because of the distance from the center to the ends. So short gets the nod.
Rounder boats have longer lasting chimes that sharp edged ones because they will flex more than a tight radius chime.

If you swamp a composite oc1 and hit a rock at any speed is when you do a lot of damage, so rolling is something to think about. So bag them to the max.
They are infinitely repairable. Outfitting is a breeze, you can glass down loops anywhere and they will not come up if done right.
Layup: I found Kevlar is not good for creeking except in the center of the layup. , otherwise it will create a hinge effect and concentrate stress at that point, so here is the laminate schedule what I would get. : pspskkspsp with much reinforcement in the stern and chimes... for an 11 foot boat it will yeild about 47 lbs , kinda heavy but way tough. If your builder can do it correctly, get them to spray a " gel layer" of resin and graphite mix ( 6 to 8 mil), this will help the boat slide much better over rocks ,but they gotta do it right.. A vacuum molded boat is best but it needs to be a little on the resin rich side (not a race boat mix) If anybody has any composite questions, feel free to email me. Victor@opencanoe.com Cheers!

[sbroam]

Hi Victor! I must say www.opencanoe.com wasn't what i expected! [SFW, just covers a different kind of "first descent" than I expected ]

[ClassFive Boats]

Cheese and crackers !.... I was building a website for a local doctors office and forgot I used my domain as a test site.

[Mike W.]

here is the laminate schedule what I would get. : pspskkspsp with much reinforcement in the stern and chimes... for an 11 foot boat it will yeild about 47 lbs , kinda heavy but way tough.

Am I reading this correctly? 10 layers of cloth plus reinforcement? Yeah, that would be a tough lay-up.

[ezwater]

My experience after a year in a Millbrook Big Boy is that damage has been only surface cracks in the outer S-glass. I have not had a break that caused leakage. I have not yet attempted repairs, but experience on a Millbrook C-1 was that S-glass cracks were superficial and easily repaired.

If Kaz had feedback on enough boats of a particular model, he would be able to modify the layup to reduce damage. There are times when use of Kevlar on the outside of the hull, particularly on chines, could reduce damage caused by hard thumping over ledges. And there are times when Kevlar can't stand up to compression forces when chines are compressed inside by blows to the underside of the hull. This could be reduced by carbon or S-glass inside reinforcement.

Whenever you do repairs on a composite boat, first analyze what sort of forces were probably responsible for the damage. In most cases, outside repair cloth should be S-glass, and inside repair cloth should be Kevlar. But there are striking exceptions to this rule, especially regarding inside or outside repairs to chines.