kayak_hole.jpg
Originally uploaded by Suffering the Benz
I went out for a paddle on Saturday in very choppy conditions that weren’t helped much by frequent Vol Navy drive-bys. It was a wild ride, with water crashing into the cockpit a few times.
When I returned, I pumped the water out of the cockpit, but also checked the bow and stern hatches. Stern was fine and dry, but the bow had a lot of water in it. That’s when I discovered the hole in my hull.
I’m pretty sure I did this while paddling with reckless abandoned before daybreak. At one point, I ran aground so hard on some boulders that I almost fell out of the kayak. That must be when the damage in this picture occurred.
How to fix it? I’m not terribly adept at “fixing stuff,” so I turned to the Internet, specifically Paddling.net, for guidance on how to proceed. I found this site that does a great job of explaining how to fix a fiberglass hole and apply new gelcoat. Resolved to plug the leak, I went out and bought the materials I’d need.
On Sunday, I worked on the boat, following the instructions from the fiberglass repair site. I screwed up and used too much epoxy despite warnings to go easy with it. But in the end I sanded that down and ended up with a fixed hull. I still need to apply gelcoat, but that should be relatively easy.
To test it, I took the kayak out yesterday and paddled up to Cloyd Creek, which is about 10 miles roundtrip. When I got back, the first thing I did was popped the bow hatch. It was bone dry in there.