What's the rationale behind the brass keel strip? I bet it looks cool, but I don't know what function it serves. I thought you were already using the graphite bottoms when you wanted extra abrasion resistance, and brass sounds heavy.

: Heya, if anyone wants to know how to build a simple yet effective
: underdeck camera storage compartmentor to know how to install
: brass strips on the keel of their kayaks, lemmie know and I will
: post pics and discuss it. Currently, I have installed a plastic
: rear hatch on the deck of the Night Heron S&G, permanently
: sealed the front hatch opening for lack of desire to have one
: and built an underdeck camera storage compartment for a 35 mm
: SLR with big ass lens. I will probably add a waterproof door on
: the camera compartment since I have a bad habit with cameras.

: Incidently, I was at a family reunion a couple of weeks ago. It was
: late at night, some time around 2 a.m. The next camp over had
: children who were frolicking around in the moonlight playing
: frizbee or something. I thought the would make a great night
: time picture so I got up off my chair, carefully placed my well
: used wine cup on something nearby (never did find it again till
: morning)...cautiously walked over to the picnic table where I
: knew there was a plastic tub and proceeded to set my camera on
: top of it (thinking it was bottom up) so that I could take a
: longer exposure image of the children and maybe the moom. Well,
: when I set the camera on what I thought was the bottom of the
: upturned tub, I heard a spelunk! then felt water all over my
: hand. I immediately sobered up, muttered "Oh shit!"
: and yanked the camera out as quickly as I could in my
: not-too-sober state of consciousness. I looked at the camera LCD
: screen and could see some message saying that the lens divorced
: the camera body and they weren't communicating. With the words
: "Oh f**k, not AGAIN!" running through my mind and many
: hundreds of dollars of possible future debt now being considered
: (I will never live without a camera even if it means debt), I
: yanked the battery out of the camera body and wiped everything
: as dry as I could. I tossed the thing in the car and hoped we'd
: have another brutally hot day when the sun rose. Well, in the
: morning I checked the LCD screen only to see humidity on the
: inside of the glass. I left it in the sun for the next three
: hours then once the moisture was gone, inserted the battery and
: promised never to mistreat the camera again. Well, it worked!
: The electronic guts got a good soaking but because the water was
: fresh, it apparently survived. The images I had stored to the
: memory card were fine. I almost lost camera number 6 due
: to...you guessed it again...stupit maneuvers....I wasn't even in
: the kayak this time but hey, the kayak was on the car racks only
: three feet away. Reminded me of the time I accidently washed my
: cell phone in the washing machine...took three days to dry out
: but once it did, it worked fine. I had to disconnect the
: vibrator though, it wouldn't stop vibrating and I didn't want
: THAT in my pocket all the time. Using that cell phone was never
: quite as exciting.

: Robert N Pruden