Doug Doremus - 1989 Blazer (Before and After)

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Doug Doremus of Penacook, NH shared his photos and restauration process in bringing his 1989 Blazer back to life. One of Doug's friends Topher calls Doug "The Canoe Whisperer" because Doug "doesn't help people with canoe problems, he helps canoes with people problems!" The boat, which Doug affectionately refers to as "The Goober Boat", needed quite a bit of work as Doug describes below. Click here to see all of the pictures and read the entire story behind about Doug's "Goober Boat.

Here's are some excerpts from Doug's blog entry:

For the last three years this guy at work in Maintenance has been bugging me to fix his canoe. He picked it up for two hundred and fifty bucks but a tree limb had dropped on it and the owner at that time fixed it best he could. Well, somewhere along the way a new crack appeared that was letting water in. Time for me to take a look at it.

As it turns out it is a 1989 Mohawk 16' Blazer in Kevlar. Now Kevlar back in the time was not what it is today, more like a chopper type cloth, very rough but fairly light for a boat of it's time. Ok, so why am I calling this write up the Goober Boat? Well, the guy who tried to fix this was a Goober and perhaps I'm showing my age but the Gomer Ply Show had a guy named Goober, I think. Regardless, the name sticks in my gray matter so there ya go!

Now I guess it was stored in the out of doors cause it had mold spots and a layer of dirt thick enough to start a garden on! And the previous fixes where like little volcanoes of resin or maybe something else cause ya never know what folks use for patches, there were a lot of them! Yee Gads I said!

For a twenty-five year old boat that had a tree fall on it and twist it as bad as my back it handles really well.  The gunwales have an interesting turn to them from that event but all is good. Very light and tracks sweetly!  Nice and stable as well.  If it weren't for the inner kevlar lining I would be very interested in this hull but it is as I mentioned it is more like the chopper layup. 

I knew where the inner hull leaks where but marked them with tape as I want to put a layer of resin on them as well.  In the meantime I am going to let this hull bake in the shed, it gets hot in there, so the foam core can dry out.  My plan is to lay a layer of resin over this whole area.  I marked out the area I want to address and am hoping I'm not missing anything.

Although the patching looks like hell the Goober Boat was a wreak to begin with.  I finally, after two days of toting it around on my car hooked with the owner.  He was quite happy with the whole fix, please picture that every other word outta his mouth starts with F and I've known him for a long while.  All is good in his eyes and so it good in mine.  I think the best part was coming up with the moniker, Goober Boat!  Of course I didn't mention that to him but maybe I will. 

Done Deal!