and plans get waylaid,,,
Guess Dude isn’t serious. Can’t say that I dont’ understand. Young kid, three day weekend, wimmenz running amok before the winter blues hit, and a weeks pay in pocket burning a hole.
why would said kid want to spend part of that weekend with some old dude learning about boats, huh?
Not taking it personally, but it kinda shot my plans to hell. Was looking forward to spendind some time teaching someone something, and, of course, refreshing my roll, but more importantly, trying to get someone else addicted to kayaking,,,, There just aren’t enough of us around these parts for my liking.
When I lived in SoCal, I recall seeing kayaks or surfskis under nearly every stilted house between O-side and La Jolla. I used to walk that section of beach on a regular basis (or run, when my knees could still handle that shit.) and there were kayaks and other long watertoys aplenty. (surfboards were always stored indoors since they are so much easier to steal, and no one would question someone walking down a beach with a surfboard under arm,,,,). And that was before kayaking was becoming fashionable. (and I don’t call those toys that wallyworld sells ‘kayaks’: some fit the literal description, but most do not, and they are NOT meant for the type of boating that I do. As thin-walled as they are, I wouldn’t want to get broached in a wave in one and have it fold in half on me, and I can see them doing just that. I call them milk-jug boats because they are almost as thin as a plastic milk-jug.)
Here, the call is more whitewater, and while the white water season is about to kick off (as soon as the weather from the recent hurricane rolls this way) Its not my main calling. Different boats, diffferent handling characteristics, and yes, different mindsets. (while I don’t want to braodbrush WW peeps as ‘butterflies’, there is a definite swing in that direction. How some of these people can hold a job with the continual “the water calls” skipping work, just to drive 200 miles to do ONE lap of a river that is 2 miles long,,,, Dunno. Maybe I am just not that kind of adrenaline junkie.
Maybe its just the Romantic wannabe adventurer in me, but the idea of a week of paddling and camping on some coast line (coastal or inland great lakes) or even just a long stretch of long river (like doing the headwaters of the Cumberland in Hazard, all the way to the Falls, camping along the way.). Those ideas get my blood flowing faster than looking down some section of whitewater. Granted, paddling said section of whitewater gets my blood flowing too, but the pre-flow is not the same. I watch vids of playing in the surf of the shores of places, big waves, crashing on rocks, or playing in tidal bores,,,, I don’t know, it seems such a trivial difference when worded out, but the feelings are definitely counterpoint to each other. I have thought about getting a smaller seakayak, like an Impex or Current Designs: one that is closer to that 4 meter length, for playing on the rivers and such. Just to see if maybe the boat design would lend to me being more intune with things. I know that I would catch hell from the serious WW peeps about it, but hey, their sport started with fiberglass before it went to rotomold (granted, rotomold made the sport explode into what it is now, but I have no desire to exceed classIII water and fiberglass is plenty capable of handling that.)
And I have a Lettman IV on the porch that needs serious attention,,, Maybe I can do something ‘fun’ with it. like give it a false keel, or a dropdown skeg, for those flatwater parts of the rivers that I despise in a heavily rockered boat. It’s not like I am devoted to a rebuild to factory specs on that boat. Its a chassis in need of attention and a good foundation for playing with ideas. And she is punchy as hell, which I like in my boats (thanks to the pirouette). Punchy makes for a wet ride, but I feel I have a better handle on them over the boofy boats. (boofy boats climb the wave faces,,,)
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a quick run to the liquor store. Need to find me another bootlegger in the area: one that doesn’t try to poison or blind his custom,,,
Its just that kind of night, sitting here, sunsetting down early IMO, and nothing on my plate that I care to get involved in at this point. (well, writing, but I can do that all night long, as long as the battery bank holds out,,, And me, as long as I can hold out. Been more than few nights where I saw the sun set, then rise again, and still had that whole J.O.B. thing to attend to,,,)
Well, I said when I picked up the Lettman IV, that it was my winter project boat. And so it will be. If dood doesn’t make that call soon (like by noon tomorrow) I will pull that scraggly beast out of the rafters and split that hull as the seam. It won’t take much to fix the hull section that is the worst of the underside, but that upper deck is going to be a fun one and one that can’t be done with the boat intact.
And where it goes from there is anyones guess,,,, Make the poor beast into a crossover boat,,, really fix it up and bring it back to life in its former(present) incarnation; long slalom boat. Well, dunno where any of that is going but I will be opening up that cockpit a hair or so. That thing is a squeeze for even me. Its mostly just the layout of the knee braces that are giving me fits, the length and width are fine (comfy actually) but getting the legs wedged in,,,, Not so fun even if doable. (widen the braces by 1″ and raise the fore lip up one inch should be the trick. In kayaks, one inch is a HUGE change.)
I won’t lie, I am a bit burnt that dood has slipped off for whatever reasons. I was really looking forward to getting a good paddle session in tomorrow. I may still, but if I do, I know I won’t be as inclined to push my limits as I would if I had another hooman with me. I don’t trust the fish to help, believe me, and this time of year, the shores tend to be quite empty and few boaters around that aren’t tunnel-visioned that line they cast out.(that last is a plus and a minus. No wild ass skidoos tearing up the surface, but not many that would notice a kayak showing its belly in the middle of open water either.). That paddle float idea still has merit though, and that may be what I do.
Note to Polymath, the float in question is a 14 liter air bag. Do the math, 14 liters displacement=14 kilos of water that must be displaced to submerge the bag. Thats 30lbs-ish: more than enough to keep a body afloat even at strange angles, especially when half of that body is encased in a boat that displaces close to 100 gallons. (I don’t think I have ever read the actual displacement of the Nordkapp boats, but at 17 feet in length, almost 2 feet wide and a foot in depth, its well over that 55 gallon drum size. Rated capacity (which I think the lawyers downsize by 50% for reasons) says 135kilos for paddler, 80 kilos for gear, so figure my 92 kilo frame (half in the boat, half supported by the float bag, NO GEAR other than a paddle, and the addition of my PFD (16# displacement itself). As long as I am not getting totally kray-kray, things should be just fine. (and I have taught with the paddle float before, just never used it myself. Maybe that its time to learn myself, eh?)
Suns down, time to crack that bottle for a snort. Then I open Scrivener and start getting to the real work,,,,
