So… my tentative plan to keep myself out of trouble this winter is to build a stock class paddleboard. Of course I’ve planned this in the past but winter ding repair workload and general apathy kept me away from actually doing it.
Using Michlet and Free!ship, and playing around with some of the variables, this is rooouuughly what I’m looking at so far. 12’ long, probably somewhere around 19-21" wide, thickness is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 7" or so in the nose and maybe 5-6" thick at the tail, with the deck cut down in the middle to 4" or so to keep the paddler’s weight low to help stability.
Here’s my problem… the local EPS block supplier (and I use the word “local” veerry loosely here) can do 2lb/ft^3 density blocks, but only up to 8’ long. They will/can not cut one 12’. So I’m going to have to glue two blocks end to end. Archive searching seems to indicate that Gorilla glue is the favored sticky stuff for the job. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I was thinking glass schedule 6/4 or 3x4 bottom, 2x6 or 3x4 top (with some flavor of sandwich core plus EVA foam pad under where the paddler will be kneeling).
I’m sure at some point in its life, it will end up going tumbling through head high surf, but mostly it’s going to be used by 130-200 pound paddlers in slightly choppy water. I could not care much less about flex characteristics; I care about it not snapping in half where the 8’ long block meets the 4’ long block (parting line will be toward the nose).
So my question to Swaylocks is… am I going to have to put a stringer in this thing, and if so, what do you guys recommend? I am wide open to suggestions.
Thank you!