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.