Recent content by Paddlinhal

I had those on my Nova Craft. The dealer told me not use them to tie the boat to the car. The first thing I did was to remove them and install regular grab loops.

I had to bail out on my bucket list George River trip in northern Quebec due to leukemia and the possibility of needing a blood transfusion. Something about no cell phone service, no roads, and few hospitals gave my oncologist the willies, which spread to my wife and I finally had to do the...

I’m currently stuck in Florida, lazing by the pool, bored to death. Flights are cancelled due to the latest winter storm. I can’t wait to get home to the best snow we’ve had in years. Who knows, maybe there will be enough snowpack to get us out of this drought in time for spring paddle season.

While I’ve migrated from Royalex to Kevlar, most all of my boats were made in the 70’S or 80’s. All my gear is lighter and more compact, but at 69 it’s still just as hard to get that pack on my back. But that’s all good.

Wow Robin, I would be afraid to be within 6 feet of that, for fear of scratching it with my thoughts! But I am going to take your advice.

I just inherited this rotator cuff shredder. Apparently 2212 means 22 inches by 12 inches blade size. Both paddles are 56" long.

This is actually a great idea. I have some snaps with a flathead woodscrew. I could just knock it out and replace it with a same sized machine screw & nut. Who knows, maybe I already have 500 of them in my Erector Set.

More care & feeding, I just bought a fistful of brass snaps from Dan Cooke. I have had to replace 2 or 3 and suspect my ocean-going trips may be starting to weaken them. I was thinking, for my field repair kit, I need a way to rivet them into place without a bulky rivet tool. Any ideas?

I just bought a Z Fold 7, which opens up to the size of a mini tablet. The thing is great for tripping. With careful use, a 20K mAh will last a couple of weeks. This means it's on airplane mode continuously and generally turned off completely. It's waterproof to a half meter for 30 minutes. And...

I'm ready. I usually do what the person who planned the trip wants to do.

A good tip for planning is to research which sites require reservations, then go somewhere else. We planned a salt water canoe trip out of Stonington Maine last year, and thought it would be nice to spend one night on Isle Au Haut, an Acadia National Park site. Reservations open at 10 AM on...

I don't mind the cooking of group meals, then kicking back and letting someone else take the next few days. But to be fair you need to draw straws to see who goes first and lightens their load first. On non-cooking days, it's fun to have the extra leisure time to explore or blab around the...

From my house in central mass, it's about the same 10 hour drive as to Allagash Village. It has a lot less visitation than Algonquin. We paddled the Chochoquan, which starts outside the reserve. As I recall, we had the place to ourselves, all the campsites were great.

I did a little research, and tuffstuff is a blend of basalt and innegra. Innegra is basically polypropylene and nothing sticks to it, including gel coat. The lowdown is: Epoxy doesn't bond well, so eliminating the gel coat won't really fix the problem. Vinylester adheres a little better but...

Just bought my first new canoe ever. Nova Craft 16' Prospector. It's made of tuffstuff, which is a kevlar/ poly weave. To protect my precious new boat, I followed the manufacturer"s video and installed a couple of skid plates. My first good bump in a rapid, and no damage to the (dynel) skid...