In what was an extraordinary Hawkesbury, we started with warnings of bad weather, which were then cancelled only to then have the bad weather come in when we were all at our most vulnerable. 30km/h + headwinds, a fast incoming tide, rain and some pretty heavy 2-3 foot chop meant the last 10km took an eternity. We couldn't stop for a break as it meant we'd end up going backwards and/or end up capsizing, and with driving rain coming at our faces, it was generally an unpleasant place to be.
A stop at Wisemans to have some strapping put on my hands due to blisters, plus troubles with my right wrist were troubles I'd not encountered before, and slowed us down a little, but it was a reasonably pleasant night up until the weather doing what it did.
At one stage we got caught up in a barbed wire fence which got interesting. We were hugging the bank in the incoming tide, when we dodged a star picket which happened to have a trailing string of barbed wire underwater attached to another star picket. We were stuck fast as the wire got lodged in the rudder system and sat the for a good 5 mins trying to get free. Another paddler stopped to help but couldn't budge us, and we ended up being helped by a nice fella and his mates who were having a few beers up the river a little and waded into the thigh deep water in the darkness to lift us off. Thanks mystery man!
We made it in a time of 14 hours 39 mins, which was slower than we'd hoped, but still pretty good considering the circumstances.
Eventually the race committee made the decision to cancel the race for everyone who hadn't made it past the Spencer's checkpoint, which was both good and bad. The conditions were really ordinary, the worst I've seen yet, but it would have been such a shame to have been pulled out after so much work to get to Spencer's.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Replacement materials arrive
A nice surprise arrived yesterday, a package via courier with the replacement materials Pygmy sent me to make up for the stuff ruined by the leaking epoxy. Included were:
- New heavy fibreglass tape;
- Another sheet of fibreglass cloth (both this and the tape above has absorbed most of the spill);
- More syringes, vinyl gloves, stirring sticks and light fibreglass tape;
- Another copy of the Coho Manual and The Epoxy Book;
- A sheet of Mylar (clear vinyl plastic) which had been discarded by FedEx;
- Another 1 quart of resin (part A) and 0.5 quarts of hardener (part B) to replace that lost in transit. To say it was lost is perhaps an embellishment. I still had it, but unfortunately it was going to be a bit tricky to put back on the kayak where and when I needed it given it was nicely distributed throughout the box;
- An empty resin bottle so I could use the hand pump more easily. I have been using an apple juice bottle which is just doing the job, but this will make it easier when I'm using more resin in the latter stages on construction.
Again, massive thanks to the guys @ Pygmy for all their help, it only took an extra 5 days to get all this all from the States to Australia. Pretty impressive I reckon.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Hawkesbury Classic Countdown - It's gonna be a wet one!
mSo the Hawkesbury Classic is on this Saturday 23rd of October. Over the next 2 days I'll be using this as an excuse to eat a ton of food, mainly carbs (he says with a cheese and bacon roll in his hand) and generally being a layabout while building up my energy stocks.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology forecast for the weekend, they've gone from yesterday's forecast for the weekend of a few showers, to thunderstorms from midday and 35km/h winds.At least at with a top of 29 degrees it won't be too cold until the sun goes down but by the sound of it once that happens it's going to be a pretty ordinary night on the water. On the bright side, we might get a bit of flow in the river that could reduce the impact of an incoming tide? Wishful thinking perhaps...
In terms of preparation it's meant I've had to change from preparing for the cold to preparing for being wet all night. While it's important to have a beanie (woolen) of some sort to stop the loss of heat through your head, now it's also going to be important to somehow keep my head dry too. Wool is the order of the day, because it still retains warmth when wet so I've got a few old woolen jumpers and thermal too, for the midnight 'till dawn shift.
Because of the cloud there's not going to be much moonlight, so I've also got a head torch so we can minimise the number of times we end up in trees or reeds by wandering too close to the bank. I say minimise, because this always happens at least once or twice regardless of how much you look for them.
I've also got my standard compulsory emergency gear - a space blanket, compass, small torch, whistle etc and a few disposable ponchos. PFD's get tested on the day, and mine is a handy type with a few pockets on the front to stash some nibbles and a few essentials like painkillers and Vaseline for my hands. I've gone for the sans-gloves option this year. I'll have them with me in case I get blisters, but will coat my hands in Vaso to stop them getting too waterlogged during the night.
In terms of food for the night, we'll fed soup and pasta during the night, but I also have a stash of bananas, glucose lollies, muesli bars, nuts and a few energy bars for the latter stages/early morning. I've been experimenting with Coca Cola during training, and while I know you're supposed to avoid caffeinated drinks as they are a diuretic I think one small can's sugar hit can should help push me through the "wee" hours (yep, that's a diuretic joke, who would have thought I'd manage it?) where I have struggled in the past.
My tendency to vomit about two hours into the race on the same corner is expected to continue, and so I'll limit what I eat in the two or so hours before the race to avoid having too many things come back up. I can have a few bits of ready to go once my body has had it's little tantrum so I don't lose too much energy.
Lastly, if anyone reading this is feeling particularly generous, feel free to sponsor me for the race. All donations over $2 are tax deductible and proceeds go directly to the Arrow Bone Marrow Foundation at St Vincent's Hospital to do their top notch research into Leukemia and other blood cancers & disorders such as Lymphoma and Myeloma. This is something particularly close to my heart as I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins's Diffuse large B-Cell Lymphoma in 1999 when I was 16. I'm sound as a pound now after a fair whack of chemo, but I know personally how generally sh*thouse these diseases are. Get in there and throw 'em some coin!
Edit: We're looking for a time under 13 hours, which is reasonable. Last time I did this race in a double it took us 12 hrs 50 mins, so beating that time is the target. Last year was just over 15 hours solo.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology forecast for the weekend, they've gone from yesterday's forecast for the weekend of a few showers, to thunderstorms from midday and 35km/h winds.At least at with a top of 29 degrees it won't be too cold until the sun goes down but by the sound of it once that happens it's going to be a pretty ordinary night on the water. On the bright side, we might get a bit of flow in the river that could reduce the impact of an incoming tide? Wishful thinking perhaps...
In terms of preparation it's meant I've had to change from preparing for the cold to preparing for being wet all night. While it's important to have a beanie (woolen) of some sort to stop the loss of heat through your head, now it's also going to be important to somehow keep my head dry too. Wool is the order of the day, because it still retains warmth when wet so I've got a few old woolen jumpers and thermal too, for the midnight 'till dawn shift.
Because of the cloud there's not going to be much moonlight, so I've also got a head torch so we can minimise the number of times we end up in trees or reeds by wandering too close to the bank. I say minimise, because this always happens at least once or twice regardless of how much you look for them.
I've also got my standard compulsory emergency gear - a space blanket, compass, small torch, whistle etc and a few disposable ponchos. PFD's get tested on the day, and mine is a handy type with a few pockets on the front to stash some nibbles and a few essentials like painkillers and Vaseline for my hands. I've gone for the sans-gloves option this year. I'll have them with me in case I get blisters, but will coat my hands in Vaso to stop them getting too waterlogged during the night.
In terms of food for the night, we'll fed soup and pasta during the night, but I also have a stash of bananas, glucose lollies, muesli bars, nuts and a few energy bars for the latter stages/early morning. I've been experimenting with Coca Cola during training, and while I know you're supposed to avoid caffeinated drinks as they are a diuretic I think one small can's sugar hit can should help push me through the "wee" hours (yep, that's a diuretic joke, who would have thought I'd manage it?) where I have struggled in the past.
My tendency to vomit about two hours into the race on the same corner is expected to continue, and so I'll limit what I eat in the two or so hours before the race to avoid having too many things come back up. I can have a few bits of ready to go once my body has had it's little tantrum so I don't lose too much energy.
Lastly, if anyone reading this is feeling particularly generous, feel free to sponsor me for the race. All donations over $2 are tax deductible and proceeds go directly to the Arrow Bone Marrow Foundation at St Vincent's Hospital to do their top notch research into Leukemia and other blood cancers & disorders such as Lymphoma and Myeloma. This is something particularly close to my heart as I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins's Diffuse large B-Cell Lymphoma in 1999 when I was 16. I'm sound as a pound now after a fair whack of chemo, but I know personally how generally sh*thouse these diseases are. Get in there and throw 'em some coin!
Edit: We're looking for a time under 13 hours, which is reasonable. Last time I did this race in a double it took us 12 hrs 50 mins, so beating that time is the target. Last year was just over 15 hours solo.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Not so bad after all
I asked Jim @ Pygmy if there was any way to sand the stamps out that I had epoxied in the other night. Turns out that in another bout of not reading the instructions properly I had missed the bit that says to sand back the reverse of the panels you have now joined together and epoxy & fibreglass in a similar fashion (ie. the strip of epoxy and 'glass over the join will be on both sides). I've got to sand back to bare wood anyway, so it's just a matter of doing a bit extra and knocking off the stamp.
Got a few more panels done last night, but won't get any done tonight because of RFS Wednesday night training. Goddam it, my life keeps interfering with getting my project finished! I still reckon I'll be on track to finish the first lot of joins by the weekend to allow them to cure for a few days.
I anticipate that doing the reinforcing joins on the other sides of the panels won't be so fiddly and slow as the panels will already be joined and hence not to susceptible to being bumped.
Got a few more panels done last night, but won't get any done tonight because of RFS Wednesday night training. Goddam it, my life keeps interfering with getting my project finished! I still reckon I'll be on track to finish the first lot of joins by the weekend to allow them to cure for a few days.
I anticipate that doing the reinforcing joins on the other sides of the panels won't be so fiddly and slow as the panels will already be joined and hence not to susceptible to being bumped.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Success... of sorts
On getting home yesterday afternoon I inspected the previous day's work to see how my first lot of panel-joining went. All of the joins were bonded strongly enough to remove the weights, though some were still a little tacky and needed another day or so to finish fully curing. As is stands, I think I've joined together about 40% of the pieces now, and managed to glue another 4 together last night, so I think I'm sitting at a little over 50% completion for this stage of the construction. With a few warmer days on the way I should be able to get the rest of the joins finished by Friday and then they can fully cure while I'm away at the Hawkesbury on the weekend.
The lessons keep on coming however. In the manual it instructs to look over the wood panels to check for stamps on the timber put there by the mill, plus any stickers, marks etc. I did this previously when setting up and checking off the panels, but looks like I either did it in the dark or with my eyes closed, as on turning them over to check the underside of the joins that were among the first I set, I found these:
I had successfully epoxied over two mill stamps with expert precision. I figure I will possibly be able to sand through the epoxy once it's fully cured and remove them. The reason I didn't see them is that they were on the other side of the joins I was doing, and hence on the outside of the boat. If they were on the inside I don't think I would really care too much, as they'd work like an identifying mark of sorts, but I don't think I want them on the outside of the hull. After much colourful language and profanity, I also found two other stamps that I'd previously missed, and sanded them off. To quote George W. Bush "fool me once, shame on you, but... ahhh... fool me twice... you can't get fooled again".
Here's how sneaky they can be, this one was right on the join, and I wouldn't have seen it unless I was looking for them on the joins. Hence, here's Tip #3 on kayak building from the book of Coho: Check both sides of the joins before you let epoxy anywhere near them. It's like letting a dog run around unsupervised near setting cement - that mess is gonna be there for a while unless you catch it before it happens.
I guess if I have to leave them there it'll bring life to the notion that this boat will be personalised and I'll know each and every piece of it. In the scheme of things it probably won't be that visible, but it's annoying nonetheless.
Structurally, the joins are fine, hence the title of this post. And in that respect things are coming along swimmingly. I'm getting more confident using the epoxy, and starting to get a picture of the hull as it all comes together. If there was a Masterchef for kayaks, I reckon I'd still be in the competition. The taste is there, it's just that the presentation is lacking. Plus, Matt Preston is a jerk and I wouldn't take any of his crap.
The lessons keep on coming however. In the manual it instructs to look over the wood panels to check for stamps on the timber put there by the mill, plus any stickers, marks etc. I did this previously when setting up and checking off the panels, but looks like I either did it in the dark or with my eyes closed, as on turning them over to check the underside of the joins that were among the first I set, I found these:
I guess if I have to leave them there it'll bring life to the notion that this boat will be personalised and I'll know each and every piece of it. In the scheme of things it probably won't be that visible, but it's annoying nonetheless.
Structurally, the joins are fine, hence the title of this post. And in that respect things are coming along swimmingly. I'm getting more confident using the epoxy, and starting to get a picture of the hull as it all comes together. If there was a Masterchef for kayaks, I reckon I'd still be in the competition. The taste is there, it's just that the presentation is lacking. Plus, Matt Preston is a jerk and I wouldn't take any of his crap.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Construction begins - gluing the panels.
After taking stock of what was and wasn't damaged in transit, I've worked out I can begin gluing the panels together while I wait for the replacements to be sent from the States as mentioned previously.
I began gluing the panels together on Sunday with the first of the hull strips. Each strip comes in 3 pieces, and need to be glued and 'glassed together to form one long 17 foot strip which are subsequently stitched to form the hull.
Thinking the cement floor of the shed would be flat enough to begin, I started laying the panels out and quickly found that my shed floor wasn't as flat as I'd previously imagined. Having already mixed some epoxy together though, I figured I'd already started and should get to it before it thickened too much and I'd wasted the epoxy.
I think the two panels I ended up doing on the floor will be fine, but to fix the problem and make sure I was working on a level surface, I went and bought 2 trestle tables for $40 each from Bunnings, plus 2 2400x1200 MDF sheets and laid these on top. The effect was so much better and easier that I wondered why I hadn't thought of it beforehand, and also allowed me to work standing up rather than hunched on the ground. Much, much, much easier! I knew I'd try and launch into this before being really ready but thought it'd be OK. Now I'm properly ready and have reinforced the importance to myself of reading the instructions properly before doing too much.
Getting get back to the construction process, to join the panels together, you first wet a bit of epoxy on both sides of the join, then lay a small strip of fibreglass over the top and wet it out. Finally, a piece of plastic is laid over the epoxy once in place, and weighed down to ensure they stay together whilst gluing.
Seeing the epoxy on the wood for the first time has given a sneak peek at what the Okoume will look like once the whole boat is epoxied. Looking good!
The bottle holding the hardener that I threw out was going to cause a problem in that I wouldn't have a suitable bottle to mount the hand pump on - or so I thought! In a stroke of genius I realised that 2l fresh apple juice bottles are the almost the same height and have the same size opening as the 1 gallon resin bottles that the resin is supplied in. It's just a matter of refilling the juice bottle from the milk bottle I'm storing the rest of the hardener in, and Bob's your mother's brother, we're off and racing.
One shortcoming I've had is that I ordered slow-setting epoxy as I'd anticipated I would be building this in the middle of a hot baking Canberra summer where temps can reach 40 degrees in the heat of the afternoon and tend to stay above 30 degrees until about midnight. Dad's kayak took one and a half months to arrive so I figured I wouldn't be getting down to business until at least November. Shipping of less than a week, plus a cold snap over the last weekend to remind us summer isn't quite here yet has wrong footed me a bit. Pygmy gives you the choice of slow (for hot climates), medium (medium, obviously) and fast (for cold climates) setting hardener in their kits. This might be premature, but I'd guess a medium hardener might have been more appropriate. I've had to put a few little heaters in the shed while I'm working at night, to speed things along a little. Hopefully the autumn sun beating down on the galvanised roof and sides of the shed while I'm at work will create a little oven and effectively bake the stuff while I'm away. The fast hardener needs a minimum temp of 23 degrees Celsius to cure, so I'm sure it'll be fine by tonight and I can glue the rest soon. The strips are quite long so gluing them all in one sitting isn't really possible unless you've got a huge workspace.
One other reason I was a bit hesitant to glue too many was that working only from instructions means you're always a bit unsure whether you're doing the right thing. This way if I screw it up I only screw up 3 or 4 panels rather than all of them. I guess the moments of truth will come tonight when I get home and see how they've come out.
One thing's for sure - Tip #1: Make sure you get a decent work space to do these! So much easier on the tables than the floor!
Oh, and another lesson from the book of Coho - the reason the manual asks for 4 x cheap bristle paintbrushes is that it's pretty much impossible to clean the semi-thickened epoxy from a paintbrush after working with it, it's just easier to throw it out. When it comes to brushes, cheap is good here. Likewise the container used to mix the epoxy and dip your brush in. Tip #2: Start collecting margarine, butter, yogurt, and any other wide mouth plastic container once you decide to decide to build one of these, you'll need them!
I began gluing the panels together on Sunday with the first of the hull strips. Each strip comes in 3 pieces, and need to be glued and 'glassed together to form one long 17 foot strip which are subsequently stitched to form the hull.
Thinking the cement floor of the shed would be flat enough to begin, I started laying the panels out and quickly found that my shed floor wasn't as flat as I'd previously imagined. Having already mixed some epoxy together though, I figured I'd already started and should get to it before it thickened too much and I'd wasted the epoxy.
I think the two panels I ended up doing on the floor will be fine, but to fix the problem and make sure I was working on a level surface, I went and bought 2 trestle tables for $40 each from Bunnings, plus 2 2400x1200 MDF sheets and laid these on top. The effect was so much better and easier that I wondered why I hadn't thought of it beforehand, and also allowed me to work standing up rather than hunched on the ground. Much, much, much easier! I knew I'd try and launch into this before being really ready but thought it'd be OK. Now I'm properly ready and have reinforced the importance to myself of reading the instructions properly before doing too much.
Getting get back to the construction process, to join the panels together, you first wet a bit of epoxy on both sides of the join, then lay a small strip of fibreglass over the top and wet it out. Finally, a piece of plastic is laid over the epoxy once in place, and weighed down to ensure they stay together whilst gluing.
Seeing the epoxy on the wood for the first time has given a sneak peek at what the Okoume will look like once the whole boat is epoxied. Looking good!
The bottle holding the hardener that I threw out was going to cause a problem in that I wouldn't have a suitable bottle to mount the hand pump on - or so I thought! In a stroke of genius I realised that 2l fresh apple juice bottles are the almost the same height and have the same size opening as the 1 gallon resin bottles that the resin is supplied in. It's just a matter of refilling the juice bottle from the milk bottle I'm storing the rest of the hardener in, and Bob's your mother's brother, we're off and racing.
One shortcoming I've had is that I ordered slow-setting epoxy as I'd anticipated I would be building this in the middle of a hot baking Canberra summer where temps can reach 40 degrees in the heat of the afternoon and tend to stay above 30 degrees until about midnight. Dad's kayak took one and a half months to arrive so I figured I wouldn't be getting down to business until at least November. Shipping of less than a week, plus a cold snap over the last weekend to remind us summer isn't quite here yet has wrong footed me a bit. Pygmy gives you the choice of slow (for hot climates), medium (medium, obviously) and fast (for cold climates) setting hardener in their kits. This might be premature, but I'd guess a medium hardener might have been more appropriate. I've had to put a few little heaters in the shed while I'm working at night, to speed things along a little. Hopefully the autumn sun beating down on the galvanised roof and sides of the shed while I'm at work will create a little oven and effectively bake the stuff while I'm away. The fast hardener needs a minimum temp of 23 degrees Celsius to cure, so I'm sure it'll be fine by tonight and I can glue the rest soon. The strips are quite long so gluing them all in one sitting isn't really possible unless you've got a huge workspace.
One other reason I was a bit hesitant to glue too many was that working only from instructions means you're always a bit unsure whether you're doing the right thing. This way if I screw it up I only screw up 3 or 4 panels rather than all of them. I guess the moments of truth will come tonight when I get home and see how they've come out.
One thing's for sure - Tip #1: Make sure you get a decent work space to do these! So much easier on the tables than the floor!
Oh, and another lesson from the book of Coho - the reason the manual asks for 4 x cheap bristle paintbrushes is that it's pretty much impossible to clean the semi-thickened epoxy from a paintbrush after working with it, it's just easier to throw it out. When it comes to brushes, cheap is good here. Likewise the container used to mix the epoxy and dip your brush in. Tip #2: Start collecting margarine, butter, yogurt, and any other wide mouth plastic container once you decide to decide to build one of these, you'll need them!
Friday, October 15, 2010
The plot thickens... (unlike the epoxy)
I think I'm going to enjoy making so many crap jokes on here where no one can hear you scream...
Anyhow. According to Jim @ Pygmy, he sent the epoxy in a white Pygmy marked box, and it arrived in a brown FedEx box. Looks as though FedEx may have dropped it and then re-packaged it to make everything look legit again. He's been great, and with the help of a few photos is going to send out replacements for everything damaged by the leak, plus some extra part A and part B resin given I'm now a few quarts short of what I need. Now just to work out what the hell a quart is, those yanks really need to join us in the 21st century when it comes to measurements. I think it's somewhere less than a gallon, but more than a pint. Glad we cleared that up... maybe I should have asked for a bushel. Or a Hogshead. Perhaps a Firkin. Yep that's it. I need a ferkin firkin of epoxy.
What I'm getting at here is full marks to Jim @ Pygmy Boats Inc, yet again.
I cleaned off the bottles of resin last night and found one of them was still leaking, and the others' seals of the lids were shot. From what I can tell, some FedEx football player wannabe drop-kicked the original box off the plane, and it landed upside down on the tarmac and ruined everything. Had to transfer the part A remainder to some milk bottles as it has a leak, hoping the other part B bottles are fine now.
Anyhow. According to Jim @ Pygmy, he sent the epoxy in a white Pygmy marked box, and it arrived in a brown FedEx box. Looks as though FedEx may have dropped it and then re-packaged it to make everything look legit again. He's been great, and with the help of a few photos is going to send out replacements for everything damaged by the leak, plus some extra part A and part B resin given I'm now a few quarts short of what I need. Now just to work out what the hell a quart is, those yanks really need to join us in the 21st century when it comes to measurements. I think it's somewhere less than a gallon, but more than a pint. Glad we cleared that up... maybe I should have asked for a bushel. Or a Hogshead. Perhaps a Firkin. Yep that's it. I need a ferkin firkin of epoxy.
What I'm getting at here is full marks to Jim @ Pygmy Boats Inc, yet again.
I cleaned off the bottles of resin last night and found one of them was still leaking, and the others' seals of the lids were shot. From what I can tell, some FedEx football player wannabe drop-kicked the original box off the plane, and it landed upside down on the tarmac and ruined everything. Had to transfer the part A remainder to some milk bottles as it has a leak, hoping the other part B bottles are fine now.
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