basskisser wrote: 'Muskrat Love"?
Muskrat Love... LOL.
Actually I wasn't sure what caused the holes, but airdock seemed
familar with the problem after they saw the photos. The best guess at
this point is Muskrats. The system is made of material similar to RIBs.
RIBs don't have the problem though because animals can't get their
teeth around them while they are inflated. The air dock is deflated
whenever the boat is not on it, making it an easy target.

wrote:
basskisser wrote: 'Muskrat Love"?
Muskrat Love... LOL.
Actually I wasn't sure what caused the holes, but airdock seemed
familar with the problem after they saw the photos. The best guess at
this point is Muskrats. The system is made of material similar to RIBs.
RIBs don't have the problem though because animals can't get their
teeth around them while they are inflated. The air dock is deflated
whenever the boat is not on it, making it an easy target.

I'm surprised that they'd want to eat whatever type of plastic material
that is!

"basskisser" wrote in message
oups.com...

wrote:
basskisser wrote: 'Muskrat Love"?
Muskrat Love... LOL.
Actually I wasn't sure what caused the holes, but airdock seemed
familar with the problem after they saw the photos. The best guess at
this point is Muskrats. The system is made of material similar to RIBs.
RIBs don't have the problem though because animals can't get their
teeth around them while they are inflated. The air dock is deflated
whenever the boat is not on it, making it an easy target.

I'm surprised that they'd want to eat whatever type of plastic material
that is!


They chew everything. Chewed up a couple of my duck decoys years ago. They
have been know to sink I/O's by chewing on the bellows.

Calif Bill wrote:
"basskisser" wrote in message
oups.com...

wrote:
basskisser wrote: 'Muskrat Love"?
Muskrat Love... LOL.
Actually I wasn't sure what caused the holes, but airdock seemed
familar with the problem after they saw the photos. The best guess at
this point is Muskrats. The system is made of material similar to RIBs.
RIBs don't have the problem though because animals can't get their
teeth around them while they are inflated. The air dock is deflated
whenever the boat is not on it, making it an easy target.

I'm surprised that they'd want to eat whatever type of plastic material
that is!


They chew everything. Chewed up a couple of my duck decoys years ago. They
have been know to sink I/O's by chewing on the bellows.


Muskrats sank a pretty good size Bayliner inboard in a slip at the
Seattle Yacht Club.
(no wisecracks, please). Muskrats love to crawl up underwater exhaust
ports, and a 5-6" exhaust hose looks like a great "starting place" for
a muskrat den. The critters attempt to expand the den by chewing
through the sides of the exhaust hose, and in this particular case the
muskrat chewed through below the waterline. Sometimes the muskrats
simply crawl up exhaust lines to rest or sleep, and boaters have been
known to discover the presence of a muskrat in their exhaust only after
a really angry ball of fur comes blasting through the transom just
ahead of the pent up exhaust smoke.

You can deter muskrats from the exhaust system with a flap. Not sure
what you would do with a big chunk of deflated hypalon.