What's better than learning from your mistakes? Ans..learning from other peoples mistakes. It dosen't cost you anything. I learn from reading the reports of kaying accidents and near misses in Sea-Kayaker and Paddler magazine. Now I don't have to live (or not live) though that. I know this is a kayak building bb but when we run out of epoxy and bungie questions, how about relating a near miss, or incident, so that I can avoid what you went through. For example.. did you ever dump in the surf and try to roll and have the paddle yanked out of your hands by the next wave. Did you ever come to a rocky beach and have a nice man (idiot bastard) run out from the shore and help (idiot bastard) pull your boat across the rocks. Did you ever go out when it was so rough that you didn't care about you buddies because you were more worried about yourself? What do you think? Anybody want to hear this stuff? Save it for around a fire? Maybe we could code it so you epoxy sniffers wouldn't have to read it.