Satyrday

No rants, no whines, just me and the ‘maybe I has net’ grumbles,,,,

Since Verizon took over StraightTalk, my net has been hit or miss far worse than EVER!!!! And it wasn’t good to begin with. Now, a lot of that has to do with location, being in the hills of backwater kentuck, lots of leaves in the trees to block what little signal I can get, (always improves after the leaves fall) but seriously, I recall how the Ver-zon used to throttle web use when I was a customer with them back in the early aughts. Drove us nuts on the bus since we used a Ver-zon driven hotspot on the bus. And net was our MAIN comm port for literally everything, from advancing shows to just staying in touch with the missus at home.

And the cost of gettting a ‘hard line’ up here is even higher now, THANKS SLO-JOE for the fubar “great economy” your peeps keep touting,,,,

(no rants, no whines)

Second offer on Lizzy came in, Again, told the jackass buyer that I would rather take a sawzall to her,,,, Cripes,,, I know the deal: they have a buyer lined up and are trying to maximize thier profit, but the offers are flat stoopid and insulting.

So, I did what I said I was going to do. I took a sawzall to the poor girl. Yups, Brrrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!!! I cut that seat pan out of her, I did. That seat pan sat so high in the boat that I could slip my entire hand under it and waggle fingers on the other side. A full 1.5″ of distance between it and keel. So I cut the supports out and the drop leaf sides, took a sander to the support roots (loves me some fiberglass in the skin NOT!) and used some bathroom sealant to hold the pan onto the bottom for testing. If, BIG IF, this improves stability, other plans are being laid and she GOES NOWHERE. She is a 17’10″long 20″ narrow ass race boat, and I will ‘make’ her fit my needs. (and if it does not, I put things back together ‘the way they were’ and ship her off to SC so my sis and SO can sell her there.)

And for those that want to scream at me for cutting on her, She is a 32 year old has been boat that, apparently, is UBIQUITOUS in the sea-kayak world and NO ONE (except your gullible blogger, here) wants. And there are far better designs that have come out since she was loosened from her molds, that ARE in demand. I have the skills, I can make changes to her, but she will NOT be a nordkapp when I am done. (hull, yes, decks, hell no!) She is could be my long term winter project. And with things in question, maybe longer than one winter,,, dunno, will see. (and there are parts of her that ARE in demand, like that Chimp pump, and her cockpit cover/sprayskirt. All of the serious inquiries I had were for parts, not the boat as a whole,,,, and partially why I am making the choice to cut, not part ways.) OH! and I found something very curious about her, that may explain her ‘tippy’ nature beyond her narrowness. The decks are three times the thickness of the hull. The hull is a single heavy layer of kevlar/resin with a thin coating of gel on the outside. The decks are a thick layer of matte glass/resin with even more gel; the difference can be measure in tenths, not thousandths of an inch. Her deck weighs MORE than her hull does: she’s top heavy. Bad design work there,,, bracing could have been added to the ares in need, and the whole thing left thinner, but nopes, they went whole hog and made the deck a main structural thing, when it should have been the hull being the beefier parts.

And I may be playing with another skin of frame this winter, but not for me. B’s little, Bubby, is getting curiouser and curiouser about kayaking, and getting to that age where putting him in a boat of his own becomes desirable. A small skin boat with a good flat bottom and a TON of rocker in it, a fat cockpit. Not going to go full bore on the skin since two part is damned expensive and he will outgrow this boat almost as fast as we get him in it. Something inexpensive that will help him get his paddle callouses and figure out if he even wants to pursue it (he will, everyone around him is a paddler,,, kids like to emulate thier ‘peers’) I have excess 1080 cloth, enough to do a 6′ boat, and there are some exterior latex paints that are damned good for sealing skins (not as durable as the two part, but good enough in this case) Wet down the skin (it helps it shrink anyways) and apply a waterbased paint, the paint gets drawn into the skin and mechanically bonds there. Yeah,,,, sounds like a plan,,,

The Race is dead, Long live the Race!!!! SKAW paddle races are officially canceled as of last night. I recieved my refund in PP, and a 50% off coupon code for any future (IF they try it again) race fees. B and I are still going to ‘do it’ but on our terms and as budds pushing each other for shits and giggles. ANDsssss, be able to crack that beer at the halfway point, JUST’CUZ WE CAN. LOL

But its Satyrday, and I have a modified boat that needs tested out. (and yes, I have wetsuits in the truck, and right now, it looks like I may need one,,, kinda ‘oogy’ weather out there as seen from the porch.)

more later after I gets wet