wood frame hypalon skin boat kleppar

[mariner2k]

A friend of mine found a kleppar passat boat. Originally it had a hypalon skin over a wood frame.. Anyone have any ideas on alternative to hypalon? Looks like a fun knockaround the harbor boat.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

If that Passant is that folding dinghy it's not all that common.
One of the things you have to consider is a Klepper skin and the skins of other folders help hold the boat together. Thats why the skin for a Klepper kayak is ±$1500. Klepper kayak skins even have air chambers that help pull the skin tight around the framework.
You can cover it with painted ballistic nylon but I wouldn't trust it till it was prooven to be reliable in a chop.

[DGentry]

Lots of options if you don't want to buy a skin from Klepper - check out "It's a qajaq, part 2" for a good primer (starting around p44): http://www.qajaqusa.org/newsletter/M...009_082809.pdf Lots of info to be found at the qajaqusa.org forum, too. Good luck!

[mariner2k]

I haven't seen it assembled , but can it be planked while keeping it's performance?

He does have the air chambers.

[Carol Belshaw]

I have a Klepper Passat/tradewind and the hypalon hull is still supple.! You can get Long Haul Kayaks to make a replacement skin and this is worth doing. The Passat has an aluminum dagger board and can hold a spinniker. This adds a great deal to it's speed and makes it a lot of fun. Mine packs into 6 bags and has traveled in my car. It has been nice to store in my garage. Saves a lot of money. Since you can row, sail or motor them they are fun for the whole family. Holds a lot of gear for camping and fishing in quiet places.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

I have a Klepper Passat/tradewind and the hypalon hull is still supple.! You can get Long Haul Kayaks to make a replacement skin and this is worth doing. The Passat has an aluminum dagger board and can hold a spinniker. This adds a great deal to it's speed and makes it a lot of fun. Mine packs into 6 bags and has traveled in my car. It has been nice to store in my garage. Saves a lot of money. Since you can row, sail or motor them they are fun for the whole family. Holds a lot of gear for camping and fishing in quiet places.

A custom made skin sounds like a high dollar item. Is a reskinned Passant worth the money?

[JBlood]

Another option for a DIY skin would be polyester vinyl-coated (PVC) which would allow the boat to be disassembled and reassembled. Tom Yost's website http://yostwerks.com has a good tutorial on working with this material.

[Carol Belshaw]

I have heard that a Passat is rare and collectible. Anyone that knows Klepper quality will still value them. They are not for the boat owner who will not care for it and take care of it. There are still calls for this unique folding boat. Long Haul Kayacs can quote you a price and offer an opinion. We loved sailing ours in Tampa on vacation and here on lakes and Narragansett Bay. It will take a spinnaker and the aluminum dagger board helps stability. I am getting old and have a live- aboard so I will be selling the Klepper. I got a Beetle cat boat in my 20's and now almost 70, my husband and I are still boating!

[E.Johnson]

For what it's worth, my brother-in-law lent me his Klepper "Master" boat that he worked hard to restore after buying it from another person. He decided not to keep it and was hoping I'd buy it, and asked me if I would at least take it out on a lake to get photos for the next potential buyer. My brother and I lasted about 2 hours on the water before the hull breached and was swamped. I tried to repair the rubberized hull myself, only to find that the material was literally shredding to the touch. Now, we're talking about 2 different boats here from the same manufacturer, but I want to stress the importance of Klepper hull maintenance.

On the flip side, swamping the Klepper inspired me to try stitch-and-glue boatbuilding.

Also: To the point of planking over the "guts" of the Klepper: I doubt it would be a good idea. Klepper boats, specifically the Master boat, is designed to be built piece-by-piece on the shore and then launched. I don't get the impression that the "guts" would take well to being framed, but perhaps some enterprising soul out there will say "challenge accepted".

[Carol Belshaw]

For what it's worth, my brother-in-law lent me his Klepper "Master" boat that he worked hard to restore after buying it from another person. He decided not to keep it and was hoping I'd buy it, and asked me if I would at least take it out on a lake to get photos for the next potential buyer. My brother and I lasted about 2 hours on the water before the hull breached and was swamped. I tried to repair the rubberized hull myself, only to find that the material was literally shredding to the touch. Now, we're talking about 2 different boats here from the same manufacturer, but I want to stress the importance of Klepper hull maintenance.

On the flip side, swamping the Klepper inspired me to try stitch-and-glue boatbuilding.

Also: To the point of planking over the "guts" of the Klepper: I doubt it would be a good idea. Klepper boats, specifically the Master boat, is designed to be built piece-by-piece on the shore and then launched. I don't get the impression that the "guts" would take well to being framed, but perhaps some enterprising soul out there will say "challenge accepted".

I would not plank a Klepper frame. The Passat has an aluuminum dagger board and sails different than a Master. It would be hard if not impossible to " restore" a hypalon hull. They get a fresh water rinse after use and air dry in the shade THEN it is time to store in it's bags or put on a canvas cover. There is silver wax for the bottom to keep it supple and Gummilack coating. All the classic Kleppers have had TLC or they don't survive.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

Another option for a DIY skin would be polyester vinyl-coated (PVC) which would allow the boat to be disassembled and reassembled. Tom Yost's website http://yostwerks.com has a good tutorial on working with this material.

The replacement skins for Kleppers are made from 49 oz hypolon covered cotton. I don't think anyone is going to knock out something similar in their basement.
The other thing is value. Kleppers are a special market. An old original boat in good condition maintains it value. With a replacement skin a well maintained Klepper increases in value by the price of the new skin.
Since Klepper kayaks have gone unchanged for so long the parts are interchangable over decades and a bare frames are valuable if for nothing else but replacment parts. A complete Klepper with a homebrew skin is worth only what the frame is worth.

[JBlood]

The replacement skins for Kleppers are made from 49 oz hypolon covered cotton. I don't think anyone is going to knock out something similar in their basement.

While Hypalon is much tougher than PVC and is the material of choice for this application, PVC can make a perfectly serviceable skin and can be glued up by the home builder. I have a PVC-skinned Pakboat kayak that has held up quite well over five years of less than careful use. One of my projects for the coming winter will be to skin a Klepper double with 40oz PVC. If it works and I can get five years out of it (instead of 20 for the Hypalon skin) I'll be more than happy.

The other thing is value. Kleppers are a special market. An old original boat in good condition maintains it value. With a replacement skin a well maintained Klepper increases in value by the price of the new skin.
Since Klepper kayaks have gone unchanged for so long the parts are interchangable over decades and a bare frames are valuable if for nothing else but replacment parts. A complete Klepper with a homebrew skin is worth only what the frame is worth.

Agreed.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

While Hypalon is much tougher than PVC and is the material of choice for this application, PVC can make a perfectly serviceable skin and can be glued up by the home builder. I have a PVC-skinned Pakboat kayak that has held up quite well over five years of less than careful use. One of my projects for the coming winter will be to skin a Klepper double with 40oz PVC. If it works and I can get five years out of it (instead of 20 for the Hypalon skin) I'll be more than happy.



Agreed.

OK.
The homebrew skin has more disadvantages than just the loss of resale value. It de-engineers the boat. The standard skin has air sponsons that pull the skin tight around the frame and help support it. Of course the skin has to be well made to withstand the pressure of the inflated bladders. Whether or not glue alone can survive those tugs is an open question.

[JBlood]

Chuck, I appreciate and share your concerns; I've devoted some research and thought to them over the past year. You're absolutely right that any DIY skin should recreate the shape of the original skin stretched over the sponsons in order to avoid nasty surprises on the water, whether the material be nylon, polyester, or PVC.

Glue-only PVC DIY construction has worked well for the Yost Sonnet kayak designs that rely on inflatable sponsons. Of course, there will definitely be greater potential stresses on a SOF sailboat skin because of the greater weight carried and the higher speeds attained. With this type of construction the glued seams are 1" or wider, which would be wasted material for a factory process but would provide the needed strength in the absence of an industrial sewing machine.

It's the kind of thing that I'm willing to try it for myself; at the same time I can understand why others would prefer to do it another way. To every cat, his own rat, right?

-Jay

[Todd Bradshaw]

Sewing PVC isn't very effective anyway. The stitches just tear through the plastic until they hit a scrim yarn and it makes for pretty weak seams. You're better off using a glue like Vina-bond and then taping over the seams with an additional strip if you want more strength. I was a Klepper dealer back in the late 1970s and even then, boats like the Arius II were selling for nearly $3K, so whatever you do, the parts of any Klepper are pretty valuable. If you make mods or adaptations, it's wise to be sure they can be undone neatly if you ever want to sell it.