Curious how everyone feels about Kevlar skid plates, and their impact on the paddling performance of the boat? Is the weight and paddling impact of the plates worth the abrasion benefits?
Curious how everyone feels about Kevlar skid plates, and their impact on the paddling performance of the boat?
Is the weight and paddling impact of the plates worth the abrasion benefits?
I am looking at a Merlin 2 that has Kevlar skid plates installed. I've always been against them on principle as I cannot help but feel they detract from the water flow over the hull. It's an otherwise awesome boat. Ugh!I paddle a lot of rocky whitewater rivers, all my boats have skids plates or will have them after a bit of initial wear.
I no longer use Kevlar felt but rather use Dynel or Dynel over S-glass with thickened Gflex epoxy.
There are several in depth threads about skid plates and dynel if you do a search.
For me the weight is irrelevant (it's not much), a properly applied skid plate should not affect paddling to any noticeable extent.
Depending on your boat and usage you may not need them at all or can get away with a few layers of s-glass which will be almost invisible.
The aesthetics probably deter you. In racing of course seconds matter and skid plates would add seconds. For the canoe tripper there are so many ways you can lose time that seconds on the water don't matter ( unless being pursued by a tornado).I am looking at a Merlin 2 that has Kevlar skid plates installed. I've always been against them on principle as I cannot help but feel they detract from the water flow over the hull. It's an otherwise awesome boat. Ugh!
I am looking at a Merlin 2 that has Kevlar skid plates installed. I've always been against them on principle as I cannot help but feel they detract from the water flow over the hull. It's an otherwise awesome boat. Ugh!
I'm with you, I hate skidplates on any but the worst WW, they're ugly (especially mat or roving), can be noisy and are hard to clean which is important with the plethora of invasive species today. The only time I've ever added them is when the stems are worn to the point of showing the substrate, and by then there are probably already far uglier patches elsewhere anyway.Not in my opinion. They also uglify an elegant composite or wood canoe.
More specifically, I wouldn't install skid plates preemptively on any new canoe, as I did unnecessarily on my first canoe 44 years ago, but rather would wait until they are necessitated by significant abrasion on your stems. Secondly, Dynel seems to be preferred these days for abrasion resistance over Kevlar or fiberglass.
When applied to whitewater canoes it is very common to see big, irregular chunks of the felt material broken off as the result of impacts.
I order internal skid plates, when I can.Curious how everyone feels about Kevlar skid plates, and their impact on the paddling performance of the boat? Is the weight and paddling impact of the plates worth the abrasion benefits?