A New Skin

Together for the first time, oldskin and newskin. The replacement skin I bought from Ralph Hoehn’s www.pouchboats.com, shipped Monday, arrived today. Ralph told me I could expect it after the weekend, so I was surprised to see UPS pull in the driveway this afternoon. Were it not for the fine grains of sand inside the hull, and some slight wear on either side of the split rear deck just aft of the cockpit, I’d say the hull was brand new – not even a scuff mark on the keelstrips. I figured Boat Day would be faded skin’s Last Hurrah, but it looks like my Owl Creek exploration last Sunday marked the honorable end to a long career first as Pouchboats’ demo-boat, and as my own faithful Rocinante’s hardy covering.

I was at home for the blessed event because I got sick at lunch – either the cold coffee I consumed this morning in Lincoln County (who knows, maybe it was older than 24 hours and had grown something to which my intestinal tract and immune system objected), or that sandwich I had in my lunch. Anyway, suffice it to say I’ve felt worse today than I’ve felt in well over a year.

I had to open the box right away to see just how red the deck.

Then, because I felt a little better after crashing until two, I decided to remove the old, faded skin, and replace it with the new. Spattering rain fell as I took the box outside and removed the new hullskin, all bright and smelling of supple PVC, laying it on the grass beside where I’d set Campsis Radicans.

The new skin didn’t come with deck bungees, but that deck-hatch should prove better than equally useful, and I’ve still got the bungee from the old deck. Some other differences I noticed immediately:

• Red deck has Pouch logo in two places, fore and aft, as well as upon the hatch cover

• Tuck-in ‘tab’ all around the cockpit opening is separated from the deck by a sewn piece of deck material

• The aft deck closure has been changed from the sewn-in plastic tube-strip (which I’ve had to repeatedly sew up again) to a more tightly integrated plastic tube strip sheathed in white fabric

• The hull structures used to center and keep centered the frame in the skin are velcro rings glued in place at the factory, as opposed to the strips with snaps that’d been added by Ralph to the original skin. This skin came with the standard toggle plugs for the air hoses used to inflate the sponsons – the old skin came with a T-fitting to inflate both sponsons at once, thus evenly.

• The sponson sleeves are no longer “free,” they are sewn to a PVC tab, and stuck down forward of the cockpit opening – dunno why. And the straps hanging from the sponson tubes with PVC loops through which to run the lines from the rudder pedals to the rudder cables are not to be found in the new skin, which kind of sucks, because I liked that feature – kept them out of the way of my knees. EDIT: Later, looking at this photo, I realized it is upside-down, and that my statement above is wanting. Of course the sponson sleeves are attached, sewn in, all along the tops of the sleeves where the hull meets the deck fabric. Earlier iterations, that is, in the old skin that came with my kayak, had sponson sleeves that were loose all along their bottoms. Perhaps the change noted above is intended to aid in centering and keeping centered the frame in the skin, keeping the sponsons even in relation to gunwales?

• The new skin came with a set of rudder cables enclosed in long tubes that will, undoubtedly, prevent wear a their points of entry into the hull, as well as preventing wear and possible fouling where they would otherwise have come into contact with flotation bladders and whatever drybagged gear is carried beneath the deck aft of the cockpit.

• New skin’s rudder bracket (probably there’s a real, nautical term for it that I don’t know) is held in place by nuts and posts, whereas the original skin’s rudder bracket is held in place by rivets

I overexerted myself this afternoon, and failed to properly center the skin in the frame. By the time I went back into the house, my clothes were soaked in the stinking sweat of sickness, and I’d been unsteady on my feet as I picked the reskinned boat up and set it on its sawhorses. Perhaps the 303 I ordered will arrive tomorrow, and I can treat the deck to prevent rapid fading tomorrow after work. If I’m feeling well enough, I’ll also try to recenter the frame in the skin.

Here’s hoping I’m feeling well enough to participate in Boat Day on Saturday.

Westminster Shorter Catechism

This evening, after his six o’clock feeding, young Seventy-Six and I went over the Westminster Shorter Catechism, without going into all the proof-texts (except for those pertaining to the Lord’s-Name-In-Vain commandment because I need some extra help with that one). He is only about nine-weeks old, so I thought it’d be a good idea to get through it quickly, the first time. And I did skip that silly bit in the baptism Q & A calling for infant baptism. The boy seemed to pay attention during part of the recitation, managed to turn himself over for a little tummy-time, and then snoozed in arms during the final part dealing with the Lord’s Prayer.

After his evening bath, we played peek-a-boo, practiced waving our fists like Doctor Doom in the comic books (not the effete doofus in the Fantastic Four movies). Practiced some baby-talk. He’s saying this word, “Uh’Aayy,” pretty often today. I’m not sure what it means. For almost as long as we’ve known him, the baby’s been saying “Eh” to request the rubber nipples that give milk and that give comfort. “Eh, Eh,” depending on facial expression and context may mean, “Give me the milk!” or “Pacifier, now, please.”

Maybe tomorrow, we’ll go back over that last bit in the Catechism, then start on the Lord’s Prayer in Gothic:

Atta unsar þu in himinam,
weihnai namo þein.
qimai þiudinassus þeins.
wairþai wilja þeins,
swe in himina jah ana airþai.
hlaif unsarana þana sinteinan
gif uns himma daga.
jah aflet uns þatei skulans sijaima,
swaswe jah weis afletun
þaim skulam unsaraim.
jah ni briggais uns in fraistubnjai,
ak lausei uns af þamma ubilin;
unte þeine ist þiudangardi
jah mahts jah wulþus in aiwins.
amen.

This afternoon I got some sewing done on the red kayak’s back deck.  Needed less work than I thought.  Figured out why the keelstrips have wear toward the bow – there’s a strap on the inside hull-bottom that snaps either side to the keelson stringers holding the hull against the frame.  The strap gets between the stringers and the hull, making slight bulges that scrape against rocks, concrete, grass when dragged or paddled in too shallow water.  Maybe tomorrow with the PVC and the soldering iron.