: I have been thinking about building an SOF kayak sometime in the future. My
: local paddling waters contain submerged rocks and tree branches, so I am
: wondering what the toughest, most durable skin material might be. I have
: read the article linked below and these seems like a good alternative, but
: I don't know anything about Xynole and its properties. Any ideas and
: comments are welcome.

: Thanks,
: Ben

Last year I built a Tom Yost SOF with a heat shrunk dacron cover followed by 4 oz. glass/epoxy and it's amazingly tough and fairly easy to do. It's also alot cheaper than higher priced fabrics. Were I to do it again I'd use just the dacron for the deck, plenty strong enough and save a few pounds. You do need to pre-coat the dacron with a light coating of epoxy before you try to bond the glass to it or it'll suck up an amazing amount of resin. This yields a hull that's much tougher than any single ply fabric and still is very flexible like a conventional nylon cover. Nearly impossible to hurt this cover.

Bill H.