Since the boat was built from plans in Popular Mechanics, go for the tweaking! Tweaking and incorporating modern designs would be in keeping with the spirit of PM!

Find out how old the PM plans are. If they're quite old, maybe you could get a hold of Popular Mechanics, tell them about the kayak, and your plans for rehabilitating it, and they might even do a story on your project.

Shawn

> I found a canvas kayak on a firewood pile and the owner was happy to let
> me have it, since it had centimental value (she did not have the heart to
> have it hauled to the dump). It was locally built (Tomales Bay, CA)
> according to plans published in Popular Mechanics, but the owner was not
> 100% sure.

> The canvas covering was deteriorated and I already removed it. The
> framework is in great shape, only one broken frame, no rot.Though it is
> quite old, I do not think this kayak has any historical value.

> I'm having a difficult time deciding, if I should rebuild it as an
> original, or incorporate performance enhancing improvements (tweek it a
> bit)?

> wd