Alright, that title is somewhat misleading, but follow along,,,
Lettman Olymp 4, Picked up for the price of gas to go get, and little else. (dude was in the middle of Zoom Meeting for work so couldn’t take the time to conversate with me, and I would have sorely loved to have that conversation, from things I have learned about him since. Natural born kayak roller, doesn’t even need a paddle,,,,)
So’sssss. Said boat is on my deck, either in horses being worked on, on the deck being sat in, or hanging in the rafters to keep territory marking male Toms at bay. (don’t need a catty smelling kayak,,,). Been slow going, but going it is. Maybe glacier like, but even they will ‘move mountains’. Well, I was sitting in today, thinking about possibly taking the poor thing to the river and seeing just how she will handle(leaky seams and all), when I noted that one leg was bent a little different than the other. That gots me to looking further at details. Port side is ‘taller’ than starboard. Looking further, you can see where new glass was laid on the starboard side just fore of the cockpit.
This poor girlie ate a rock at speed at some point and had her entire starboard side bashed clean in. Other than the seam tape that is leaking, all of the other problems are in orbit around that repair. The broken part of the hull is on the outside of edge of that damage and was NOT repaired when they did the deck. It started de-laminating near a crack and that area is much larger now. I called it ‘mushy’ glass, and its very flexible: the epoxy is failing.
The temptation to see what she’ll do, warned me that there may not be much future for this boat. Why ‘no future’? The more I learn about these boats, the less value she has. These were ‘kit’ boats that could be ordered through the mail back in the Seventies, and were built in basements around the world. This boat was not made using vacuum bagging as I found when I put a work light inside and could see wild variations of thickness in the gelcoat and glass. This was made in someones basement and then used and used and used until its seaworthiness was too far gone. And I found that the bowpoint had been broken off repeatedly (happens in Endos when someone plants the nose into the rocks.). As for keeping her around for educational purposes: Yeah, she still has that, but I don’t think it will be to make a repaired boat out of what I have on hand. That hull will make a hella sled for when the snows hit, but I wouldn’t put in on a river with current and rocks: I would be swimming in VERY short order. And yeah, it can be repaired, but at what cost???? Is that cost worth the finished product? Not to me, not at this time.
Thats not to say I haven’t gained back what I spent on her. I have already learned a lot about building a fiberglass boat just from my limited attempt to restore her. I know approximately how thin I can make the hull before I start, bordering on “crumple with a popcorn fart” thin, and that’s important when you want to make a boat lighter and faster. Too thin and it won’t hold shape, too thick and you defeat the intent of lighter. (and this thing is THIN walled. The whole boat only weighs 22lbs and is 13 feet in length, two feet wide!!!!). (and I could lose a layer or two of my intended build and still keep strength in place and make a much lighter boat. BUT, I kinda want a boat that can take hitting a rock without crumpling like tinfoil.).
Its not time yet to take what I have learned and put into practical application, so I am going to keep her around and play some more. Maybe even fix that bad repair, ‘just-cuz’, and learn how to fix the stuff I will be building. (and I have the material to make the repair, even though the epoxy is not the right stuff, I can use it to learn for when I do have the right stuff. They operate on the same chemical principles, just not compatible with each other and what I have is ‘water porous’.).
With that said, this was a win-win for me, I only spent $30 for the gas to pick up the boat, and other than some sandpaper and time, I have nothing else in her. And yet I have learned a lot. Not enough to make me expert at it, but enough that I can gain even more when I start applying the lessons learned.
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