I have taken up the sport of Kayaking out on Lake Chapala, and am finding it marvelously more technical and challenging than I had imagined. For example, did you know that the maximum speed in knots of a displacement hull is 1.37 times the square root of the waterline in feet? You could put an outboard motor on the back of my kayak and it still wouldn't go faster than 6.5 mph. And that saving six ounces on the weight of your paddle (that savings will cost you about $30 per ounce) saves you from lifting 675 pounds every hour as you paddle? (My paddle sells for $400.) Or that efficient paddling technique requires that you do not use your arms as a source of power? They just transmit the power you generate when you brace your legs and rotate your torso; you use your hands on the paddle shaft as pivot points.

As you can see from the photo, my kayak is a narrow, high-performance boat with the inevitable lack of stability tradeoff. It was funny when I showed up at the kayak club with this $3,000 boat on top of my car. They just knew that here was an experienced kayaker. Then, when I told them that my total experience was that one time, five years ago, I had sat in the kayak when it was sitting on the garage floor of the lady we bought it from (I say "we", but SWMBO bought it for me as a present; she has decades of experience), the kayak club commodore wouldn't let me take it out. He very wisely had me start out in one of the wide plastic recreational kayaks, then each session moving up to more and more advanced boats until finally I was allowed to use my own. And what a difference! Like transitioning from a Ford Galaxy station wagon to a sports car. The first few outings in my own boat were scary, until I finally learned that my boat was not an evil-minded machine whose primary goal was to put me upside down in the water. That's where I learned about primary and secondary stability... but we won't go there at this time.

Anyway, now that I'm through bragging and reminiscing, here's the question. I wear leather open-fingered bicycling gloves when I paddle, and of necessity these gloves become completely water-soaked on every expedition. They started out baby-skin soft, and now after about 50 soakings they are so stiff and scratchy I could probably refinish furniture with them, skipping the sandpaper. What can I do to restore the original softness of this good quality, very thin leather?

tanstaafl.