The Second Mad River Courier

August 23, 2014

I had known about this Courier for a couple of years and sat back and did nothing.  With the demise of Royalex I decided it was time to take the plunge and buy it even though I have one already.  It is such a nice whitewater boat I couldn't pass it up.

Being an eighty-four it has its share of ding's and scars and especially being a Demo you can imagine the nicks and dings.  Nothing as bad as the Colander!  With aluminum gunwales I don't have to do much work except turn it into a solo by moving the seat, taking out the extra seat and refurbishing the carry thwart if I care to even keep it which I probably won't.

The next step is to pull out the Colander and compare it to this hull, two different years so who knows what changes went on.  All the dimensions call it a Courier!

August 27, 2014

So today I decided it was time to clean up the hull.  It had laid on a makeshift platform in the open for a long while and again another hull with enough grit and dirt to grow a few seeds on.  Once again I decided to use a vinegar and water mix. Damn, how that just cuts through all the crap with one cleaning!

Fresh off the Rack in VT

Paddling up the Pond

It really cleaned up to a pretty good shine for a boat of this age and I was pretty happy, sweet!

Dirty enough to grow something on!

Half way cleaned.  Now the dings are showing.

I still have to clean the interior but that can wait.  I decided to take out a seat just for shits and grins.  Holy Crap!  Some freaking idiot decided to wrap each bolt with surgical tape to protect it from the elements I guess!  I just don't freaking get it, why would one do such a stupid thing?  I tried to cut the tape off but the residue from the tape left a black mess that gummed up the threads of the nut I was trying to get off.  Oh man, what a struggle.  Also, I guess it was the theme at that age in time but carriage bolts for seat hangers?  I had to use needle nose vice grips and two wrenches to get the thing off.

There's something real smart, tape on a threaded bolt!

What a freaking gummed up mess!

I got one seat off and called it quits.  There is still some work to do on the gunwales as well.  Don't know exactly what I'm going to do with those.

More To Come.

August 28, 2014

I wanted to take the second seat out so I could see if I could reuse it in a new position on the hull turning it into a solo.  Stupid tape on threads!  Took me about forty-five minutes cause the tape was thick on these!  I do believe that I can salvage this seat and if I am correct about my measurements it should fit to where I want it at about 68" from the stern of the boat.

Of course I'm going to have to strip them down, re-varnish, and then put webbing in.  As usual I will lay a thin layer of resin on the ends to prevent rot.

I was interested to see how this hull compared to the Colander so I pulled it out and put them side by side.  To my bespectacled eyes there was something a little off on the way the ends of the hull lined up.  The Second Courier looks like the bow has a longer sweep to it.  I spent time doing measurements.

Since the rebuild of my house prevents me from laying the on the flat surface of the driveway I had to rely on the lawn so I know some measurements are a tad off.  In the end the Colander is 14' 6" x 32" wide x 14. 5" deep.  The Second Courier is 14' 7" x 32.5 x 15.5" deep.  The new is an 1985 and the old is an 86.  Not sure how the dimensions are so off but I am thinking that the New has been modified in the past.

So seat work, some rivet work and then milling out some thwarts.

More to Come!

August 31, 2014

Today I thought I'd pull the crappy seating off the seat and start sanding it down.  I am pretty convinced I can reuse it.  Now I have seen a lot of canoe seats in my time but never with this kind of material.

What is real funky is the way it was also sewn in.  Very interesting but I'll bet sags like a bugger!

Spent a while pulling staples and they were in there good.  Took a lot of effort to get them all out!

Once I had the material off I put the seat in my vice and got out my sander.  Holy Crap!  The seat started dancing like an erotic dancer as all of the joints were loose as hell!  I was really good!  I didn't swear or throw anything or scream like the devil.  I calmly took it out of the vice and stored it away with all of the other junk seats I have knowing I'll use it for a picture frame down the road.  Hell, I didn't even take any pictures it was so discouraging!  So, now I have to go buy a new seat for thirty-three dollars from the canoe shop I can't stand to use but is local.  That freaking guy still owes me a paddle but that is a whole different story!

More to Come.

September 12, 2014

I needed a new seat and ended up buying a contour seat made by Ed's and then decided to mill out my own thwart.  I am laying out this Courier just the same as the Colander as I know all will work just fine.  I planned down a thick piece of ash that was about four feet in length so I can make some new parts down the road.

Rough Cut

Down to 3/4 inch and smooth as hell!

I needed a thwart that was about thirty inches long but needed to shape it.  I took a piece of cardboard and traced the thwart on the Colander, cut it out and traced it onto my new board.  From there it was an easy task of cutting out the thwart from the raw wood. 

It took a bit of sanding but I got the edges knocked down and rounded over.  I was pleased with it all enough to say it was time to start the poly process.  After making some measurements and making the end cuts I started with a thin layer of Spar Varnish.

Cutting to fit the hull

Hanging on the Rack!

Three more coats of varnish should see done.  Next is drilling holes and mounting it on the hull.

More To Come.

September 14-19, 2014

I ended up buying an Ed's Contour seat as a replacement.  I've never tried one of these but thought what the hell!  Now, I've mounted quite a few seats but I have never had as many problems as I did with this hull.  For some reason I thought the gunwales had aluminum inserts but noooo, just vinyl and to top it off the space on the bottom of the gunwales was less then an inch wide so there was almost no room for mistakes. I think you can read between the lines!

Now here is one of my pet peeves!  Why in the hell are carriage bolts allowed to be used in boat building?  They are large, leave big holes and nine times out of ten are rusted on!  I had a heck of a time getting the nuts off and on one I ended up having to get my hack saw blade out and forty minutes later and a can of liquid courage found it in the garbage can!

Vice Grips and a wrench didn't work!

Tried and tested method.  Had to cut through the bolt!

All that work for this!

This one broke right off!

Rusted and rotten!  I hate carriage bolts!

Next I placed the seat where I wanted it as I was soloizing this hull like my other Courier.  My new method is to place it on top of the gunwales and then drill the holes.  Now as I mentioned there was not a lot of wiggle room on the gunwales and of course on the first drilling I messed up!  I creased the side of the gunwale leaving a nice gap as my hole was off just enough!  Lots of swearing ensued!

Damn It!

I ended up filling the hole in the seat with G-Flex and walked away in disgust!  The next day I re-drilled the hole to the correct space and then started on drilling and cutting new hangers.  That of course went badly, I guess it was one of those weeks!

G-Flex filled hole

Drilling out the new hole.  G-Flex curls!

I tried out a set of hangers from the Adventure Canoe but they were way too low to use so I ended up cutting down the old ones which were in fair shape and used those.  I'm not happy with those though!

Hangers from the Adventure Canoe

Way to low to use.

Old hangers cutting to size

I love my pullsaw!

Finally I got the seat in but was truly unhappy with how much flex the hull had!  I know I can stiffen it up by adding a couple more thwarts but that is something I don't want in this boat!  I threw in the towel and decided to rack the boat for the winter and re-gunwale it in the spring with wood gunwales!

More To Come.

September 20, 2014

Sometimes walking away brings some results.  I decided that I still do need wood gunwales but it will have to wait.  I needed to stiffen up those lousy vinyl gunwales so I milled out another thwart despite the fact that I don't really want it but will need it to get this hull on water!  It took about an hour to cut it out, round over the edges and sand it before coating it with the first layer of spar varnish.  It should help out quite a bit and I plan on put a small one behind the seat as well. 

More To Come.

A River Rescue, Well Kind Of

Thought I'd share this little tale of a kind of a river rescue we did last night.  Four of us did the 10 mile stretch on the local river, a nice and calm run.  At mile five it was now dark but the moon had breached the treeline and was lighting everything up as it was so full!  I love it when it gets like this!  We came across a group of folks who had put in above us so had already done 10 miles but were floating those inflatable chairs and not canoes or kayaks!  It was getting a tad chilly and they were all soaked and cold by now and couldn't figure out where the next takeout was.  It was just about in reach but they didn't know.  They did ask how far it was to where their cars were and when I said another five miles you could hear them all groan, swear and one woman starting crying!

So, we lead them to the takeout but then they said there was a father with 3 kids downriver who had split from the group for some odd reason!  About a half mile down river we found them.  Dad was in a shitty little kayak towing two rafts behind him with his 5, 7 and 10 year old sons and boy oh boy were they ever cold, scared and couldn't get in touch with anyone.  The youngest, David, was shivering so hard and crying like crazy as he was so out of his element!  We pulled in and let Dad know his group was pulling off but there was no way he was going to paddle that mess back upstream.  We told him that just downstream was a big sandbar with a farm road that lead back to the main road and we would lead them there but we would have to paddle down about another 1/4 of a mile to get to it.  In the meantime I found a long sleeve shirt I had packed as an extra just in case and gave it to the little guy which seemed to help him some.  I told the kids that I would hang right with them for the paddle to the beach and that seemed to help them get a little bit calmer.  I never left their sides and just kept talking to them as we paddled. Scott paddled up front with Dad and just kept talking to him, not sure what they talked about but it went well. 

We got to the sandbar and started leading them to the road and my buddy Scott says to me that we should lead them all the way out to the road which was about a mile and a half walk, although Scott says a half mile.  Dad didn't have a flashlight, we did and we walked. This is through a massive corn field and it was like walking through tunnel.  The 7 year old was having a hell of a time keeping up so I ended up piggy backing him for a long way but ya know I sure wished I had worn my shoes! ;-(  The walking was good as the kids started warming up and the tears and chills stopped.  Since I was in the back of the pack I didn't hear what was going on but apparently Dad got a hold of his wife and she was coming to get them as they were still five miles away from their car down river.  I think this might have been around ten p.m. 
  

Scott and I just couldn't see leaving these kids and Dad who was clueless to their own devices so we stayed in for the long haul.  On our walk back to the boats after leaving them on the road we each just kept chuckling and slapping each other on the backs cause ya know as Scott said to me, "We did a good thing!" 

We still had another 5 miles to the takeout but we sure took our time getting there.  The night was beautiful, the moon was shining so bright and I think we each felt pretty darn good!  So all in all it was a great evening on the river!  Didn't get back home until almost one in the morning and I knew my feet would be a mess for days for going barefoot but it was ok with me!  Some nights the river just treats you kindly and let's you pay back a little!

The Goober Boat

 For the last three years this guy at work in Maintenance has been bugging me to fix his canoe.  He picked it up for two hundred and fifty bucks but a tree limb had dropped on it and the owner at that time fixed it best he could.  Well, somewhere along the way a new crack appeared that was letting water in.  Time for me to take a look at it.

As it turns out it is a 1989 Mohawk 16' Blazer in Kevlar.  Now Kevlar back in the time was not what it is today, more like a chopper type cloth, very rough but fairly light for a boat of it's time.  Ok, so why am I calling this write up the Goober Boat?  Well, the guy who tried to fix this was a Goober and perhaps I'm showing my age but the Gomer Ply Show had a guy named Goober, I think.  Regardless, the name sticks in my gray matter so there ya go! 

Now I guess it was stored in the out of doors cause it had mold spots and a layer of dirt thick enough to start a garden on!  And the previous fixes where like little volcanoes of resin or maybe something else cause ya never know what folks use for patches, there were a lot of them!  Yee Gads I said!

Welcome to the Spider Web of Old Fixes!

It was suggested that to clean the kind of crud off a mixture of vinegar and water would cut through it so I gave it try.  I was amazed at how it worked.  See, ya learn something new everytime you work ona  boat!  I was amazed at how it ate right through the crud leaving what was a shiny but used hull!

Layer of Dirt and Crud

Crud and Clean

Half Way There on the Cleaning

Cleaned Up!  Looks Pretty Damned Good!

So  the next step was to fill the new crack.  I used my usual mix of West System and G-Flex mix with Dyanl cloth cause I know this is a rugged fix and being on the outside and near the chine it was a good fit.  Now, I have been experimenting with Peel Ply and this stuff is turning out to be a God Send!  It makes for a smooth finish compared to my wax paper affair and keeps run off to a minimum.  I think I may be love.  My patch came out so clean compared to past attempts is was crazy

To the novice eye this probably looks like a mess but believe me it is clean as hell and will take only a little bit of sanding on the edges to make it smooth.  It's the third patch I've done with this stuff!

So next step was to sand down all the old patches.  Did I mention volcanoes?  These patches that were there were thick enough to pave an old road down smooth enough to skate board on after you took it all down!  S-glass was the underlying foundation which is good but the goop that was spread on top was a lesson in not HOW TO DO THIS!  Christ, I started with 120 grit and then said the hell with that and went to 80 grit and still had a tough time with getting it down to a level near the hull.  In the end I called it quits as I was getting to near the skin of the hull.  My plan is to lay a layer of resin which I may thicken a tad just for spreading reasons over each patch and call it good as they don't leak but need some attention.  I'm not adding new cloth as I think the existing bond is tight enough!

Beautiful ain't it?

More To Come.

August 9, 2014

I was curious about this leaking problem and was wondering where it was so the only way to find out was to take the boat out for a cruise.  I didn't think it was coming from any of the existing patches nor from my new patch but had to find out!  I put in on the Contoocook River where I was kind of accosted by a party boat owner!  "Hey, ya gonna park yer car there buddy cause that's where I always park!"  Like the stupid ass owns the public boat ramp?!  Where's the freaking reserved sign for Joe Asshole was all I could think!  But even though I was kind of in a surly mood I moved my car into a shaded area and called it good.  The best though was his engine on his party boat wouldn't start and as I paddled off I could not resist to yell out, "Should have checked it before ya left home!"  I got the salute for that one!

Ok, out on the Merrimack I started looking all over for water leaking in.  I knew it would be a slow leak but a leak is a leak is a leak.  I had my thoughts about where it was coming from but I really didn't want to guess.  It only took about a quarter of mile to see it was coming from the bow where I knew two chips through the hull to the core where.  Slow but it added up pretty quick.  I made it up about a half mile and then pulled into a sandbar and flipped the hull as I was paddling it from the front seat facing the back and wanted make sure I was looking at the right end.  Yup!

The Culprits!

That is an easy fix but it will mean yet another paddle to test the new patch!  Oh man, this is just misery having to keep test paddling!

I'm so Unhappy!  NOT!

For a twenty-five year old boat that had a tree fall on it and twist it as bad as my back it handles really well.  The gunwales have an interesting turn to them from that event but all is good. Very light and tracks sweetly!  Nice and stable as well.  If it weren't for the inner kevlar lining I would be very interested in this hull but it is as I mentioned it is more like the chopper layup. 

Showing Her Age but Still Going Strong!

So a small patch and another chance to play with Peel Ply to patch these two minor holes and the of course the burden of another test run!  Oh my, how hard life is with these rebuilds!

More To Come.

August 10, 2014

Well I thought I had it all nailed down, no more leaks so I took it for another spin today but GODDAM IT leakes!  Within a quarter of a mile I had enough water to use my sponge to dry things up.  I kept looking down to see where it was coming from.  Damn, this is a frustrating process!  I pin pointed where water was coming in from on the inside but now need to figure out where on the outside it is coming from.

When I got back to shore I flipped the boat and looked long and hard, just the usual scratches.  So on the way home I hit the car wash and sprayed the hell out of that hull, inside and out!  I think my car was jealous!  Back at the shop I put it in the racks and waited for a long drying time.  Low and behold there are a shit load of pin holes in the hull and they all correspond with the places that were leaking on the inside.  I marked them with some chalk and then marked it out with masking tape for the job!

Damn Pin Holes!

 I knew where the inner hull leaks where but marked them with tape as I want to put a layer of resin on them as well.  In the meantime I am going to let this hull bake in the shed, it gets hot in there, so the foam core can dry out.  My plan is to lay a layer of resin over this whole area.  I marked out the area I want to address and am hoping I'm not missing anything.

To do this I decided to try out a foam roller.  I have not done this yet but have read a lot about its application.  Sounds pretty simple to me but I know how this shit goes!  Usually it is dismall!

So a bit more waiting time before I can try to fix this stubborn bastard,  Damn, this is a painful go!

More To Come.

August 15, 2014

I had laid out two layers of resin on the pinholes after using a syringe to try to fill them best I could.  This morning I took it out to the confluence of the Contoocook and Merrimack!  Holy Shit, the rivers were cranking.  At the putin the water was about eight feet above normal!  I unracked the boat and put in and just kept paddling around the Tookie, I just didn't feel like fighting the hard current and kept to the back eddies for about an hour.  Not one drop of water leaked in so I know the patches are all good.

I think all I really need to do is a little bit of sanding and then fill the hole in the carry thwart with some G-Flex and this hull is done.  Nothing fancy as the owner doesn't care much about looks as this hull is pretty beat up.  Good to get it done though.

Put a layer of resin on all the S glass patches

Pin holes filled and double layer of resin to protect.  Done Deal

August 19, 2014

Although the patching looks like hell the Goober Boat was a wreak to begin with.  I finally, after two days of toting it around on my car hooked with the owner.  He was quite happy with the whole fix, please picture that every other word outta his mouth starts with F and I've known him for a long while.  All is good in his eyes and so it good in mine.  I think the best part was coming up with the moniker, Goober Boat!  Of course I didn't mention that to him but maybe I will. 

Done Deal!