Hey Matt
well, i tried what you said with the black plasitc and air and a day in the sun...the hull got pretty hot....too hot to touch for more than a second or two. but no luck....its still deformed particularly on one side of the hull. its noticable when you look down the hull from the bow or stern. also, the seam between the hull and the deck is assymetetrical from one side to the other...on one side its "s" shaped and on the other is a simple arc shaped.
i took the yak to the dealer where i bought it. was told they would fix it with heat. they put clear bubble wrap on top and left in the sun. later that day i picked it up. didnt look any better to me. i pointed that out to the salesman and he said it was normal to have some distortions. i looked at all the other adventures in the shop and they were all shaped better than mine. i wasnt getting anywhere with them so i just took the yak home, and was not impressed with there customer service. i was very polite with these guys and was treated like i was wasting their time. i just bought the thing from them a week earlier.
anyway, i wouldnt be so picky about it but when you look from the bow or stern you can obviously see the asssymetery of the hull and i fear its effecting the tracking.
is there any way i can get hobie to verify whether this hull is within the normal manufacturing toloerances of adventure hulls with more detailed photos or soemthing? Here are more pics i took after the dealer "fixed" it
http://www.skypixhelicam.com/yak.htm
the one image on the top is a before shot and the 3 below are after shots and i dont see much of a difference. the before shot is looking stern to the camera and the the after shots are looking bow to the camera. the major problem areas are circled in red. the red circle one on top...opposite the daggerboard side, is the worse side.
thanks!!
Dan Shaw