Wear after a trip

[petroni]

Just got back from a 150 mile plus hover trip up some skinny rivers south of Prudohe AK and i noticed some wear I've never seen. The craft is a modified sized scout-This is yukonmcdades old one which should be shown somewhere on this site already.
The wear hown in the picture is the same on the left (shown) and right.
....The craft does great for the most part with a 27 hp kohler...good top speed of 42 @3450...slow river cruise of 15-25 mph @2200/2400 with a rough water rpm of 2800-all with about an 800 lb payload.
No plow issues except it is a little sensitive to plowing at top speed-which its normally never goes. I know the skirt needs a little trimming an I had trimmed the partition a bit but I didn't want to experiment too much in the field being as remote as we were.
Could this be technique? Maybe bow skirt too long?
Petroni

[AJW]

Is the wear on the seam where the front cone shaped skirt section meets the side skirt section?

This is a common problem on sevs, but a really easy fix.

In the UK we use replaceable wear flaps that glue either side of the front side curtain onto the cone shaped skirt section then the bottom part hangs loose and protects the join of the two skirt sections. Sorry not describing it very well, but imagine a strip of scrap skirt material about 8 inches long & 4 inches wide. The top 3 or 4 inches has a slit cut in it. this is to allow it to be glued either side of the front side curtain. bottom half hangs free.

When they wear out just warm them up with a hot air gun and they will peel off, replace with new ones.

Very simple job that saves the skirt from wearing out prematurely

Hopefully someone will have a picture of an anti wear flap

[John Robertson]

The wear is fatigue failure of the coating - basically, the material has failed due to either age (loss of plasticiser making the coating stiff) or excessive flexing. I'm surprised you don't have more wear running at only 2450rpm - there isn't much protective air leakage under the skirt at your cruise RPM and payload (the skirt will be contacting the surface too often). The other wear has exposed the reinforcing fabric which will deteriorate very quickly leaving the skirt with the tear resistance of a paper bag. If it were my craft that skirt would be replaced before it leaves me stranded somewhere

It doesn't look like the normal Sev vinyl skirt material - I'd strongly recommend you buy the stuff Bryans sells - it's far superior to most of the vinyl fabrics out there.

[petroni]

It is being replaced this winter with a lighter material. The material installed is supposed to be 20 oz material but im not happy with the overall wear characteristics so im going back to a more flexible fabric that seemed to do well on my Prospector. The heavy material seems to work against this smaller craft as once you put one patch on it it becomes very stiff.
Ive just never seen this wear pattern on 2 skirts I've maintained...

[bphillip2]

That looks pretty normal for vinyl material on a craft with high cushion pressures. A Scout sized hull with a 27hp engine is going to go through vinyl pretty quick. The urethane we use does not display that kind of flex failure.