There were a few abandoned canoe shells in some kind of potentially recoverable condition stored outside the 'factory' when I started helping out last year, so when Jeff did an 'inventory' of all the canoes that never made it out of the shop for some reason or other last fall - mostly 'cosmetic defects', a few 'demonstrator boats', and the odd prototype, we decided to salvage as much as we could to avoid taking anything to the dump.
Here is a perfect example. A three year old carbon kevlar shell that had blown away just after the top was cut off, and suffered from some minor structural and major cosmetic damage. I found a buyer, a friend who absolutely needed a half decent canoe that was as light as reasonably possible, yet didn't want to drop the two to three grand typically spent on a lightweight canoe. A fantastic structural repair and interior paint job by Jeff, a decent set of used gunwales, and all new interior fittings installed by me, resulted in a tough, durable carbon/kevlar boat with a final price tag of $700 and a weight of just 42.5lbs. Sweet!
