I have not looked at it with a magnifying glass. I'll see about that tonight. This boat will not be used in any arctic expeditions. In fact I'll be lucky to have it out 5 or 6 times in a year. For the conditions / use it will see in the forseeable future the deck delaminating would be an inconvenience, not a risk. I take your point though. I am concerned about it. I do not want the hull to have the same problem, hence the testing in process. I am quite tempted to email Larry at Raka and ask for a refund on the unused glass.

> Do you have a magnifying glass? I think you may want to do some peering at
> this with one. To see what was really happening. As in was the glass truly
> weted, or just surface wetted? Did the epoxy fail instead? Did you
> actually peel from the wood instead? Etc.

> Personally, I would be concerned about this. You do this type of testing
> on power boats when repairing them just to make sure the patch will adhere
> and not pop off later. As in take a few inches of glass, epoxy or resin it
> down to the substrait for only an inch or so, and they using the unepoxied
> tab try to rip it off. The glass should not tear free easily. That is an
> indication of failure and a repair combination that will not work.
> Properly adhered, you should rip the glass at the joint instead. That or
> just yank with no reaction if you aren't strong enough to rip the glass
> cloth itself.

> The kayak itself may well still work, but I'd be concerned about it if it
> were my own. Especially if I was planning an actic expedition or something
> where I absolutely couldn't afford boat failure from hard use.