Kevlar keel guard?

I recently bought a 1998 Skagit Orca 27 fiberglass pilothouse. My former boat was an 26′ aluminum plate pilothouse, so I’m learning the ways of PRF. Anyway, here in the Pacific Northwest hitting “stuff” floating in/under the water is a way of life. With aluminum, unless you also hit the engine’s lower unit, no worries. But with fiberglass, there are chips in the gelcoat that need to be repaired. It’s not that it’s hard or complicated, just repetitive here, where the forests fall into the sea. I’m also like to canoe, and this winter, I noticed that my veteran 17′ Old Town Tripper had started to wear a little thin at the bow where I run it up on the bank all the time. Old town sells a kevlar keel repair kit. You rough up the poly-plastic along the keel with sandpaper, lay down a strip of kevlar cloth, and then mix the two-part resin/hardener and paint/saturate the kevlar strip onto the canoe’s keel. The result is a “bulletproof” keel. I’ve run my canoe up onto concrete ramps a few times just to test it, and I haven’t even scratched it. So, I got to thinking (always dangerous, I know). What would happen if I kevlar’d the keel of my Orca??? I don’t care about looks or a slight loss of top speed, ONLY ruggedness! I’ve seen the glue-on rubber keel guards that are on the market, but my kevlar keel canoe looks tougher. Opinions, please? Thanx, Dave.

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Kevlar keel guard?

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