Get to the Club at 1:30 Pm on Sunday for the Sea Kayak Committee meeting. The meeting is schedule to start at 2:30PM. I arrived early hoping that the repair that I did on my boat on Saturday finally harden so that I can sand and do the finishing work on it. After greeting Steve, Jen, Pete and a couple of other clubmembers that were already there I finally get around to taking my boat out to be inspected. It was commented right away that the repair was done incorrectly by MB, who have very expensive fiberglass repair experiences. It was confirm that the release film should have been apply for smooth surface so that sanding would be unnecessary but it can still be fix with lot of sanding if the the repair harden. It was dry to the touch but not hard so the sanding will have to wait till the weather get better.
Meeting start promptly at about 2:45PM, which is not bad by the club standard of promptness. We have a good mix of people, filling out the whole clubroom. We start off with each person standing up and introducing ourself. I was almost the last person on the rotation. My intro was fast, just name, years with club and training. There were enough long winded intro from other members so I am sure everyone was glad for the short intro.
Classes for this season were goes over and discuss. We will having a couple on intro to kayaking classes at the clubhouse in Jamaica Bay which I would like to voluntee to teach since I do have coach 1 certification to teach intro to kayaking. I would be fun and give my practice on coaching. There will also be formal teaching of Star 1, 2 and 3 at the cabin at the lake upstate. I would like to voluntee to help out on 1,2 and take 3 over again before getting certify for 3. I will have to talk to Anne or Tom about that. Just send him an email in fact.
Next up for discussion is the biggest part of our kayaking program, the Open Paddle on Wednesday and Saturday. Hopefully we will be a bit more organize that last summer. I voluntee to assist two paddles (Jun 1o, Aug 15) and co-lead two paddles (Jul1 and Aug 5). We will also have more challenging paddle for conditional clubmember. Yahoo!!! I will look forward to that.
There rest of the discussion is standard safety stuffs that just drag on and on. I blanked out so really can't say much about the detail discussed.
Meeting breakup at 4:30 so it was relative short and informative.
See you all on the water.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Preparing For New kayak Season
Get to the Club on Saturday to do some repair on my kayak. I had inflicted some damage to the fiberclass gelcoat last summer from all the fail attempt at Eskimo Roll. There were already people hard at work on the club ground when I get there. The usual people, the gardening commitee people digging up holes for Spring plantings, and moving dirt and rock from on place to another.
This Saturday Andy organized a gelcoat repair workshop. I was not told who else was coming so was surprise to learn that only three other people are interest in learning how to fix fiberglass boat. Tony help me carry my kayak into the clubhouse where a fire is buying in the stove for heat. I get down to sanding my two areas in need of repair.
Tony kayak already insider the club on makeshift stand. There was really no repair need on Tony's Kayak except for a stratch on the bow. In no time at all he was ready to apply the gelcoat.
Andy bought a fiberglass gelcoat repair kit with all sort of color so that we can use it on any boat that need to be repair. There was a bit of guessing and rereading of the instructions before the color and gelcoat were mix. In their enthusiasm to get the work done, Tony and Andy forget to mix in the hardener that would cure the gelcoat so the repair area have to be clean out. The question of how much hardener to add to the mix was the most difficult part of the repair. It was decided that 3 drops should be enough, given the kit requirement of 6 drop for every tablespoon of gelcoat mix. Apparantly that was not enough because the gelcoat did not harden in the 1 hour waiting time.
Below are picture of repair on my boat. My gelcoat also did not harden in the 2 hours that we waitied for it to harden. Andy speculated that the temperature was too cold for it to harden properly. I think that we did not put enough hardener in the mix and didnot cover the repair area with the release film provided by the kit. I did not agree with Andy instruction on how to goes about mixing and applying the gelcoat. I thought that the film should be apply to provided an air tight seal for the gelcoat to harden but Andy say we don't need it. I may have to take out this repair and redo it when the weather get better.
This Saturday Andy organized a gelcoat repair workshop. I was not told who else was coming so was surprise to learn that only three other people are interest in learning how to fix fiberglass boat. Tony help me carry my kayak into the clubhouse where a fire is buying in the stove for heat. I get down to sanding my two areas in need of repair.
Tony kayak already insider the club on makeshift stand. There was really no repair need on Tony's Kayak except for a stratch on the bow. In no time at all he was ready to apply the gelcoat.
Andy bought a fiberglass gelcoat repair kit with all sort of color so that we can use it on any boat that need to be repair. There was a bit of guessing and rereading of the instructions before the color and gelcoat were mix. In their enthusiasm to get the work done, Tony and Andy forget to mix in the hardener that would cure the gelcoat so the repair area have to be clean out. The question of how much hardener to add to the mix was the most difficult part of the repair. It was decided that 3 drops should be enough, given the kit requirement of 6 drop for every tablespoon of gelcoat mix. Apparantly that was not enough because the gelcoat did not harden in the 1 hour waiting time.
Below are picture of repair on my boat. My gelcoat also did not harden in the 2 hours that we waitied for it to harden. Andy speculated that the temperature was too cold for it to harden properly. I think that we did not put enough hardener in the mix and didnot cover the repair area with the release film provided by the kit. I did not agree with Andy instruction on how to goes about mixing and applying the gelcoat. I thought that the film should be apply to provided an air tight seal for the gelcoat to harden but Andy say we don't need it. I may have to take out this repair and redo it when the weather get better.
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