: Thanks for the info. Are you on fresh or salt water? I'm wondering
: if like canvas that should be a consideration when chosing wood.
: I'm hoping that being on salt water the kayak will have a good
: life; maybe not so if I was on a lake. Even crossed my mind to
: fill the boat after paddling to get the salt water into the
: wood.

Are you planning to just do this for ocean paddling, or are you going to bring along some rock salt and make up a brine on the shore of fresh water streams and lakes? If so, it will be cheaper to buy salt for a water softener than to buy table salt. Dissolving the salt to get a brine may take some time if your water is cold.

Actually there are better materials that you can use for soaking your kayak to prevent (or at least reduce the growth of) rot and mildew. Most paint stores sell packets of mildew preventing additive for paints. Home Depot and other big box stores have them in the paint departments. Dump the additive in a gallon of your paint, mix it well, and the paint will inhibit mildew and rot. Not using paint? Mix it in the varnish, dissolve it in water and paint that mix on, or mix it in water, slosh it through the inside of the boat and dump out the remainder. Do it once a year if you wish.

Don't want to play with some fancy additive? Like the natural basis of pure ocean water? Shift your view to the desert and pick up some borax (20 Mule Team is a favorite brand) at your grocery store. usually found in the aisle with the laundry supplies. It is a natural water softener and detergent enhancer, and it clears away mildew stains and restricts new mildew growth. It is gentle to your skin--heck, they use it to wash baby diapers--so you won;t get any chemical burns if you leave a bit behind when you slosh it through the boat. The stuff is cheap. If you carry a pail with you you can mix up a couple gallons of water with a handful of borax and slosh it through the boat after every paddle if you want.

Chlorine bleach will also remove mildew and slow down the rotting processes. But it needs to be used greatly diluted as it will weaken cotton fabrics. With a weak solution of bleach you need more contact time to kill the little molds and spores, so a fast slosh is not going to be as good as a long soak. After using bleach you would want to rinse things out to get rid of any remaining bleach. It is a little more of a hassle.

The lady of the house has been collecting rainwater for her plants. She used to have a problem with mold and fungus growing in her collection bottles, so she started adding bleach. When I pointed out to her that the bleach-treated water was going on food crops, and probably that would not be too good, we switched to using hydrogen peroxide. It has been working fine in our gardening water, so it should be something you can scale up. That is another option for keeping down mildew growth in your kayak. Dilute it, let it soak a bit, then dump it out. Any remaining Hydrogen Peroxide will break down to plain water so there is no dangerous residue.

I'm sure there are many other mildewcides to chose from, too.

PGJ