Sorry for the empty post before.

John,

No problem, I do not blame you for the direction this took.

I have had my standard layup kayak (Pygmy Arctic Tern) fall from 6.5' with 30 pounds of gear in it and suffer only surface scratches. I have seen a heavy brit boat fall fron the same height and it suffered structural damage.

My Tern dropped also dropped about 2' (in the air) with a person in it onto softball sized rocks, again only surface scratches.

I have surfed it onto chunks of asphalt. This started to cut into the glass, but not all of the way through.

A kayak that I built using multiple layers of light satin glass, has suffered abrassion problems (into the wood), but the patch of 6 ounce glass is holding up for longer than the original layup.

My neighbor's kayak got hit by a car, actually pinned under it, and it only suffered a 2" cut in the deck, but that was from sharp metal pushing on it with the weight of a car. It was easily repaired and would have still been seaworthy with a little duct tape.

I have also seen production kayaks colide in the surf and suffer damage all of the way from outside to inside, but the wooden kayaks, haven't had the same problems. I feel very cofident, it the standard layup, but for a kayak used in surf, I would recommend Nick's expedition layup.

I do recommend that you post with an e-mail address. If you are afraid of spam, put "NOSPAM" in the middle of it.

Mike

: i must apologize

: i did not mean for the question to take the turn that it did.

: i merely thought it would be useful to have available accounts of kayak
: collissions, mishaps, etc. and the resulting damage or lack thereof.
: something like : my kayak was holed (or not) by a rock hitting the hull under
: my seat as the surf brount me down on a 6'' diameter rock. i estimate the
: weight of kayak and gear and paddler was 205 pounds and dropped 1 foot in
: less than a second. my layup of the stripper was 4oz e glass on the inside
: with 6oz and an extra layer of 4oz on the bottom of the hull.

: something to this effect.

: i do agree that engineering analysis is very useful in understanding the
: strengths and weaknesses of the building processes, but does not always
: agree with reality. empiric anectdotal information is real, but may not
: lead to the understanding of the forces involved. still it is useful, and
: a large body of data my yield some insights. a weak layup on a kayak that
: is treated gingerly may be adequate, but until we see some endpoints, the
: information is not bracketed. it would be nice to know how light one may
: go and still survive the rigors of day to day use with the occassional
: 2plus standard deviation calamity. crash testing would be useful, but
: expensive. just looking for the unintended crashes to provide the data.

: john