Pakboats

You really do not want to miss the Wilderness Paddlers Gathering at the Hulbert Outdoor center in Fairlee, VT, March 8 - 10. It is open to everybody - and it certainly is a highlight of my year.

This year you can watch a presentation of a canoeing trip across the Ungava Peninsula by a group of Outward Bound instructors. There will be a trip on the Nahanni and workshops on many canoe related topics.

Valves may be the most common trouble spot for inflatable parts. The valve may fail, or it may be poorly attached to the fabric. In both cases, a repair may be almost impossible. One of our customers came up with a simple solution. We simply weld a replacement valve to a piece of fabric. The bad valve can then be cut off, and the replacement valve gets glued on over the hole that is left.

After we made some improvements last year, we don't expect to see many failures on new parts, but the repair patches will be useful on older parts - and on parts made by other manufacturers. The parts are available now and will work with some PVC adhesives, but not all. We recommend the repair adhesive we ship with our polyurethane kayaks.