Recent content by stripperguy

A MINIVAN!! OK, I'll confess to about 7 years of minivan ownership...they (2 different ones) would carry everything and everyone on camping, paddling, skiing trips and get reasonable fuel mileage as well. Back to your original post, I would take my carbon copy Kite. Versatile, fast enough, a dry...

Hmmm, WRT area calculations, I would just transfer the shape to a CAD file, and let the software do the crunching...works every time. I remember days of approximating geometries to determine IP, IT , mass and CG for various rotor components. Took forever and were still just an approximation. Now...

Jeff, 1st build, huh? Looks like you must have some previous experience, the hull looks very nice. What did you use for your final sanding? If random orbit, you can usually get by with 80 grit... as long as you don't have excessive cross grain sanding marks you'll be fine. BTW, your work area...

Al, Near one of those roadside Horseshoe campsites, there is a good spring, complete with hand laid stone liner. BTW, there used to be more of those roadside sites, but a few folks abused it and set up hardside trailer campers and stayed all season long. And my nephew, who is now 42 years old...

Al, Thanks for the TR, next best thing to being there... I've been talking about those cisterns for quite a few years, that Lows guy was pretty enterprising. By the upper dam are the remnants of many, many buildings, I could spend a full day just poking around there. We used to car camp at...

That was the maiden voyage of my 17 ft stripper. It weighed 37 lbs at birth, And was a very fast and versatile hull. The build was nearly done on that first trip, I finished lacing the bow seat by the campfire on the first night. Unfortunately, I installed and laced that bow seat upside down, so...

I had a pair of Al Camp paddles (not Campaddles) that I bought from an indoor garage sale at RPI in, uhmm, 1978?, 1979? I dunno... They were some of the final stock left from Andy's Sporting Goods, a really good outdoor equipment store that was closing up shop. BTW, they were the only Sawyer...

We’ve had discussions here before WRT Mike and the intertwined relation with Harry Roberts too. I was a Roberts fan, preferred the sit and switch style in faster, sleeker boats. I used to live a few miles from Harry’s spot in Rotterdam Junction. MDB and I would often see him paddling on the...

From left to right: MDB (My Darling Bride) on the log at Lake Lila, August 1984. My buddy Dave and his soon to be ex wife, His 327 strip built pro boat.

I have a Neo Air. I'm not a side sleeper per se, I always start on my side and always wake up on my back. BTW, all my life I sleep at most 2 hours at a time, so there's plenty of side/back sleeping cycles. The Neo Air is plenty comfortable all night, but I can't inflate it fully or it will be...

I built a 19 ft sailboat many years ago, still have and use it. As long as I didn’t put a motor on it, there was no need to register it. But, if ever I wanted even a little kicker to launch and land, it has to be registered here in NYS. So I applied to have a HIN assigned, a state trooper came...

I’ve often wondered how long items need to be abandoned before they transition from garbage to artifact. Case in point: at the base of an easily reached waterfall, often hidden in knee deep vegetation, is a former dump site. Old milk cans, broken bottles, etc. My best guess is that the items...

H80 Divinycell, epoxied to build thickness. Epoxied in place, wrapped with carbon fiber. Threaded aluminum insert with flange on back side, so that clamping loads a taken in shear by epoxy, and compression on flange. BTW, gunwales are foam wrapped with carbon/kevlar.

Uhhmmm yeah… I stand by my assessment. I am a design engineer that spent my career in R&D, mostly in advanced technologies for defense and aerospace. There are established design criteria, specifically for adhesive based joints. No need to say more.

I have a similar construction gunwale on the carbon copy Kite that I built. After a couple years of awkward carry thwarts attachment with h over the hull straps, I ultimately modified my gunwales. I think I posted about the mods here, but don’t have time at the moment to dig up the post. I...