Erik wrote:
> That Moell is simply beautiful. I'd never heard about them until your post.
As I mention on my website: it is extremely rare (although I stumbled over some other
Moell owners
lately).
> What are the dimensions; beam, length, weight, etc.?
In metrics: it is 5,30 m length, 60cm beam, approx. 24 kg weight. It's got 9 crossribs
and 6
stringers (there is no gunwhale as I know it from Pouch or Klepper kayaks, rather a
stronger
stringer where a gunwhale should sit).
> Have you had it long?
I got it last autumn. Soon after that, I left Germany to work in Great Britain for 6
months and when
I returned, it took a while to get a new skin made by Markus Heise (from Switzerland,
he specialises
in making skins for folding kayaks). The old skin was just very hard and seriously
leaking.
Soooo, I received the new skin in september and have been on just a couple of short
trips so far
(the last overnight trip a week ago). I enjoy every part of it and it is so much fun
to paddle it!
> Now that I've seen the Moell, my goals for a homebuilt boat have been
> reinforced. Do you know if there is more information available on the
> internet about the boats?
No, there is not (at least none that I am aware of). Currently, I am following a trace
that could
lead to some success. Gesa, the Austrian company that produced the Moell kayaks in the
60's, went
bankrupt. Somewhen in the 80's, a guy bought what was left over (according to some
rumours, he even
bought machines, frame parts etc.). Yesterday, I spoke to another Moell owner who said
that this guy
is even building boats for other people (but for a price!).
At the moment, I can't say more about this rumour until I get a confirmation from that
guy.
Ralph promised some posts earlier to put some lines drawings onto his website. One of
those drawings
shows the Moell kayak. It can be rebuild using those lines. I hope Lorenz Mayr, the
copyright owner
of those drawings gives his okay.
Besides the book by Lorenz Mayr, there is the "Hadernkahn", a German language book by
Christian
Altenhofer on the history of folding kayaks (might be available via amazon). It is
full of
photographs, showing a fair amount of greenlandic style folding kayaks on white and
coastal water in
the 50's and 60's. AFAIR, there's also a line drawing of the Moell kayak and one or
two other
greenlandic kayaks in the book.
Note that the Moell kayak had been designed for whitewater touring. As I found out on
several open
water trips, the boat is seriously weathercocking, I'll soon add a skeg to eliminate
that. Also, the
designer, Franz v. Albers, was approx. 56 kg's (130 lbs???). Siegfried Fricke who
owned my boat some
years ago told me that his weight (120 kg's) was much too much for that boat (the
water ended just
within the gunwhales). If someone is going to build a replica, he/she should adapt the
boat to the
weight of the paddler.
Regards,
Marian
Marian Gunkel
Rostock, Germany
http://www.mariangunkel.de
#########################################################
Foldingboats Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be
reproduced outside Foldingboats or Foldingboats archives without author's permission
Submissions: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To reply to the list, please hit the reply-all button and delete the original author.
Subscriptions: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
#########################################################
