Hi, a little project i'd like to do is convert a fibreglass slalom boat to a squirt boat.. shorten it, squash the deck etc.... How would i go about this ? What do you mould the fibreglass round etc ? How do you squash the deck.. Does someone who knows alot about fibreglass etc care to explain this to me please.. Thanks

I have been thinking of doing a similar thing. Asking for more feedback on this on the downtime squirt forum I did not get many responses, other than \"it's easier to get yourself a proper squirt kayak\".

I would start with the smallest possible boat I could still fit in. Being 83 kilo's myself I would start looking at boats for 60-70 kilo paddlers. Then, shorten the boat to you desired length (probably 8 or 9 feet?). Next, if necessary, take the hull and deck apart, chop it and put it back together. To squash it I would cut the deck in the middle, semi-cut the deck (not quite through but to make it bend easier) inside of your legs and bend those bits down. Use opencell foam for support and to glue the bended down flaps to. It has the nice property of not melting when in contact with polyester, it's cheap (often for free in packages) and you can cut it with a knife. Downside is that it absorbs water but then again, you don't want too much floatation anyway

It is pretty hard to explain dimensions as it all depends on what you want. It's more a kind of \"go with the flow\" construction: modify the boat, test fitting, perhaps a test paddle, change a bit more, etc. In the end, you will probably toss it out with the garbage and buy yourself a secondhand Shred for cheaps on ebay But it would be a lot fun to do.

hmm sounds good.. im only just 60kgs atm, but then im only 16 and still growing. Ive never seen a squirt boat on ebay but i'll keep looking. knowing my luck one will appear when i have no money...

it goes pretty much something like this,

Pay attention to point 7 but most of all have fun with it.

Get yourself down to chertsey on a monday night and there are useually a few squirt boaters there, the seam is awesome at the moment giving some huge dark downtime.

Best bet is to buy a second hand one or if possible a new one, you will get so much more from it. new they are from about £775 (downtime uk) to about £1500 quid (import Murkywaters canada).

Good luck on the hunt, but finding a second hand one is like finding rocking horse doo doo.

Teishu, I would also visit the downtime forum (downtimekayaks.com/forum). There are a few people overthere that sell a reasonable boat every now and then.

Or perhaps the people from downtime have some traded-in boats available? It helps if you're short. Being 6'4\", 36\" inseam myself doesn't help finding a squirtboat that fits, especially as there is no one around here who paddles a squirt boat

well its not something that i can get atm as i dont have the money or room however.. i will go there when i am going to get a squirt boat.

From the cboats forum I found the tip to look for a used Wavesport XXX. One guy actually squashed that boat even more (he can because he's paddling it as a C1) and it turned out to be a pretty good squirt-ish boat. Still too much volume for downtime (unless you are in really big water) but for most moves it works well he wrote.

Otherwise, look out for the Eurokayaks Axis or Enigma models. They are plastic and not as good as composite squirt boats but usually very cheap (around 50 GBP or even less) and you're ready to go without having to do a lot of work that will probably only cost you money.

The Axis is supposed to be a nice beginner boat but that is just hearsay as I never paddled one myself.

Cheers,

Michiel