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Fall Boat Maintenance (and quality bungee cord?)

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AKA What have I gone and done (and I need new bungee cord).

Putting the new Conk seats in the Explorer and Odyssey I washed the canoes first and, eh, what the heck, 303’ed them. Not a lot of shade on the outside rack with the leaves off the trees. Checked all the hardware and tightened or replaced some deck and thwart bungee cord that was getting too loose or worn thin. Routine maintenance.

I guess I’m not done. The painter line and thwart bungee on the Freedom Solo has stretched out some. That is high quality, woven sheath bungee, some with reflective tracer, just stretched a bit, not worn thin. So it was simply a matter of pulling one end accessible and re-knotting it tighter. While it is still above frozen hose weather, I might as well wash and 303 that one too.

The Freedom Solo is one of my favorite canoes, outfitted with the usual touches, utility/sail thwart, foot brace, knee bumpers, strap yoke, partial spray covers, etc.

PA240007 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

PA240005 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The seat is nice, but in comparison to the wide-webbed contour Conk seats, kinda meh.

PA240003 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Dang it, not done yet. The Missus used the “Pamlicanoe”*, a Pamlico 145T soloized as a pocket-sized decked canoe with a raised center seat, on a day trip a week ago. It was dirty before she left, a lot dirtier when she returned, and I noticed that all of the deck bungee was shot to heck.

We don’t really need all that deck bungee. There is (was) 9 feet of bungee on the bow, where I would rather have little secured to throw up spray. I replaced it with a simpler X to provide a place to stuff the blade of a paddle and spare.

A 5 foot length of bungee is all I need up front, providing diagonals for two paddle blade keeps. Used in conjunction with the keeps on the utility/sail thwart those hold the paddles belt & suspenders firmly in place.

The bungee on the stern deck is useless. If there’s need to secure some low profile/lightweight piece of gear to the stern deck (think sleeping pad in slender DIY dry bag, not case of beer) bungee cords are not my idea of held “secure”. Especially not behind me where I can’t see if it has fallen off.

There’s 11 feet of stern deck bungee I don’t need to reinstall any of it. If I need to strap a sleeping pad or etc to the back deck I’ll snap some mini-beeners on those pad eyes and use straps.

PA250035 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Double dang it, there is another boat that hasn’t been washed, inspected and maintained, a soloized Pamlico 160T with a very elevated center seat, aka “The Plastic Kruger”. Yeah, it is wide (33”) and deep (16”) and heavy as heck (almost 80lbs), but it holds a ton of gear and, like the P145, it sails wonderfully. And the P160 has a lot of bungee on it, and I’m about out of shop stock bungee.

PA260040 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The way those pad eyes are recessed I couldn’t snap on minibeeners, so I had previously installed four grommet straps (love those little things). Much cleaner with all that junky stern bungee gone.

PA270049 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Arrgghhhh! One more boat to wash (no wax/303). The MRC Independence. “No wax” because that most delightful hull needs bunches of work, starting with a paint job.

PA270051 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Patched and regunwaled at least 20 years ago there are lots early, less skilled repairs on that freebie canoe.

PA270053 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

PA270064 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I can do much better now on a re-rebuild, and have a fun canoe to tinker with.

That was all a very long way of asking this question:
Does anyone have an on-line source for good quality ¼” or 3/8” bungee cord? Preferably woven sheath and UV resistant. Reflective tracer a plus.
 
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