Y'know George, I usually skip reading your posts because they tend to be so anal. This is another good example. The content of Nick's book surpasses that of the other three main stripping books (Gilpatrick, Hazen, Moore). I suppose you've insulted those authors too?

I would much rather paddle one of Nick's works of art than paddle one of your boats, even though yours might survive being tossed off the roof of a highrise. In fact, it's a wonder you even have the courage to pick-up a tool to start building a boat knowing just how many material failures are possible.

Ross Leidy

> Nick's book on kayak construction is for the coffee table not
> the shop.

> Included in the problems with the book are

> 1) There is no construction engineering philosophy presented.
> Example: One takes 1/4" wood strips planes and sands then to
> some unknown thinness. This unknown thickness of wood is expected
> to support the unspecified design loads.

> 2) There is no testing philosophy presented. Example: Of the
> best cloth/epoxy shops only a few can consistently produce work with
> less than a 40% variation in strength. They do it by removing variability
> from their materials and processes. With the many sources of fabric
> and epoxy and with the different techniques and shop conditions used
> the variation of strength between home builders and Nick must be more.
> Yet Nick gives no test(s) to determine if your construction or even
> his meets any standard.

> 3) There are no warnings of probable catastrophic failures. Examples:
> Both the glue/wood bond and the epoxy/wood bond fail if they get wet
> as in after minor hull damage - the boat falls apart. Epoxy/aluminum
> bonds (as in foot braces) fail after a period of time measured in
> months due to normal exposure to moisture - the foot braces fall off
> facing the paddler with a loss of control.

> Given Nick's background in engineering he should have done better.
>