Sanding plastic hulls

[Edward Ripley-Duggan]

I have a Walden Passage that I use as a touring boat (river and
coastal), now two or three years old. The hull's in pretty good shape
(the boat's stored carefully in a barn when not in use) but has
accrued the expected measure of surface abrasion one would anticipate
in a boat that's used fairly regularly, not always at all gently! I'm
considering going over the hull lightly with a very fine emery paper,
as I'd guess the surface roughness has a small but measurable impact
on performance. My intention is to remove a minimal amount of plastic
and then hit it all with a coat of UV protector. Good idea or bad?

Thanks to those that answered my question regarding paddling in the
Pemaquid area of Maine. I ended up soloing, with some interesting
estuarine day trips of up to twenty miles or so, as well as some more
exposed paddling to the islands. I managed to avoid getting in hot (or
cold) water. My schedule was somewhat erratic so matching with someone
else might have been tricky.

Ted

[Brian Nystrom]

Edward Ripley-Duggan wrote:

> I have a Walden Passage that I use as a touring boat (river and
> coastal), now two or three years old. The hull's in pretty good shape
> (the boat's stored carefully in a barn when not in use) but has
> accrued the expected measure of surface abrasion one would anticipate
> in a boat that's used fairly regularly, not always at all gently! I'm
> considering going over the hull lightly with a very fine emery paper,
> as I'd guess the surface roughness has a small but measurable impact
> on performance. My intention is to remove a minimal amount of plastic
> and then hit it all with a coat of UV protector. Good idea or bad?

Don't waste your time, as there's no real benefit to it. Go paddling
instead.

--
Regards

Brian

[David J. Van den Branden]

> From: Edward Ripley-Duggan >
> Newsgroups: rec.boats.paddle.touring
> Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 00:26:50 GMT
> Subject: Sanding plastic hulls
>
> I have a Walden Passage that I use as a touring boat (river and
> coastal), now two or three years old. The hull's in pretty good shape
> (the boat's stored carefully in a barn when not in use) but has
> accrued the expected measure of surface abrasion one would anticipate
> in a boat that's used fairly regularly, not always at all gently! I'm
> considering going over the hull lightly with a very fine emery paper,
> as I'd guess the surface roughness has a small but measurable impact
> on performance. My intention is to remove a minimal amount of plastic
> and then hit it all with a coat of UV protector. Good idea or bad?


It's not really worth the time and effort. Your time would be better spent
on the water. If you want to take down some of the hair with minimal effort,
make a pass or two over the particularly hairy parts with a heat gun or just
shave off the big curls with a razor and call it done.