Strap-on kayak skeg sea trials

I took the kayak to the public boat launch ramp at the Berkeley marina's south basin. It was windy enough that the windsurfers were out, it was hard to make any headway to windward, and the waves were big enough to bury the boat's bow a couple of times.

The skeg worked the way I hoped it would, rather than the way I expected it to. Tracking was greatly improved, but not so much that the boat was painfully hard to turn. After about an hour and a half in the water I pulled the boat out and found that the skeg still seemed to be exactly where I had put it; I had thought that it would get pushed out of alignment after a while.

The next step is to try a shallow-draft skeg that would work when the boat is launched from a beach.

Strap-on skeg

The strap-on skeg is meant to be a temporary means of improving the kayak's tracking.

It probably ought to be shorter and wider, but the shape was dictated by birch plywood scraps that I had. It has two pieces of 1/8" braided rope that pass thru the skeg and that have a loop tied at each end. The loops hook onto a pair of shock cords that are held on the deck with nylon straps. I don't yet know if this will work at all when the boat's in the water and under way.

The skeg in place

The skeg's bottom plate is coated with Goop to make a rubbery, sticky surface that won't slide. The tip is coated with Goop because it's more durable that the oil finish on the rest of the skeg. Goop was also used to fill various nooks and crannies and to glue the rope into place.

Once I've got this working (or when I just give up on it) I'm going to start making a waterproofed-nylon spray skirt.

(December 2012: this skeg is too deep to use in most conditions.  I've been making a much smaller strap-on skeg for another kayak, and it seems to work fine.  My current kayak has a rudder that I use as a drop skeg when it's windy.)

The kayak

I've been given this old fiberglass kayak. It was homemade a couple of decades ago, and now much of the gelcoat is missing, and it has duct tape on it that's been there for 20 years. There are foam blocks inside of it that hold up the deck and are probably meant to make the hull stiffer; those blocks are all out of wack. The bungee on the deck is new, and the flotation bags still work.

The seat isn't attached to the bottom of the hull, and it's probably supposed to be. There are adjustable foot pegs that still work, although they're hard to reach.

The boat came with two nearly-worn-out spray skirts, and I've got to figure out how to repair them or make a new one.

Tracking seems to be terrible, tho I'm not sure that it isn't just because I'm a beginner, and because I'm using it on open water instead of on a river. I'm working on a strap-on skeg to help with that.

A really cheap kayak cart

A quick google of "kayak cart" shows that the cheapest one cost $60, and most of them are over $100 - so forget that. I decided to make my own, and I did, and that's it in the photo.

The construction should be almost self-explanatory: a pair of training wheels from Thrifttown ($1) are bolted onto PVC t-connectors, and the rest is made from tees and thick-walled PVC pipe, and a "pool noodle." If it seems like it needs a stronger frame I'll add another crosswise pipe to it.

Improvements: I suppose the tees can be joined to the pipe sections with clevis pins to make a cart that can be disassembled. If the wheels were closer together then the thing could be turned upside-down and used to load the kayak onto the car. Bigger wheels would make the cart more usable on lawns, beaches, and gravel roads, but as it is it's only useful on hard, flat surfaces.

Materials:

• training wheels from the thrift store or flea market
• four 3/4" PVC tees
• one pair each of 3/4" x #14 machine screws, nuts, and washers
• glue (I used Plumber's Goop), clevis pins, or sheet metal screws to join the PVC parts
• pipe insulation, pool noodle, or other foamy cushioning thinger

The cost so far for the parts that didn't just come out of a junk box (that means the training wheels and the pool noodle) is about $2.25.


Edit, October '11:  This thing is usable, but it really needs to be sturdier, and the padded parts should be farther apart.  PVC cement would be best for permanently joining the PVC pipe and couplings, but I don't like to buy that stuff--most of it ends up sitting in the can until it goes bad.

December 2012:  If you make one of these, plan to make a better one and keep your eye out for a bigger pair of wheels and some aluminum tubing from an old pair of crutches or something.  A jogging stroller with an aluminum frame is a good source of parts.

Simple DIY paddle leash

A paddle leash is meant to keep the paddle attached to the kayak. This particular paddle leash is meant to be cheap and simple.

Materials:

• a few feet of 1/4" or 1/8" shock cord from REI, West Marine, or from a hardware store
• a plastic shock cord hook (optional)

The knot links all go to the Animated Knots By Grog website.

To make the paddle leash: tie a figure-eight loop near one end of the cord, like the one on the left side of the first photo. Tie a stopper knot into the loose end of the cord, as seen on the right side of the photo. (If you use 1/8" cord then a monkey's fist might work better than a stopper knot, if it's tied compactly. A monkey's fist in 1/4" cord would probably be too bulky to be practical.)


The loop should be a bit smaller than the stopper knot, but large enough that the stopper knot can be pushed thru it. There should be enough cord between the two knots to go around the shaft of the paddle.


The second photo shows, more of less, how it works. The end of the cord goes around the paddle shaft and the stopper knot is pushed thru the loop. This should keep the leash on the paddle, and should be easy to release in an emergency, although I haven't really tested this yet.


The other end can have the same arrangement, or a plastic shock-cord hook, or just a large knot that goes under a deck bungee. If you want to keep it really simple, just tie it to the deck with a bowline.

The super-cheapskate way to do this would be to use a loop of shock cord (or some rubber bands) held by a knot in the thin rope that would be used for the rest of the leash.

The loose end of the shock cord has heat-shrink tubing and a bit of Aquaseal over it. The other end has a plastic snap from Narain's in Berkeley. The plastic snaps can be hard to find (search on "shock cord hooks"), and you may want to just get a stainless steel snap off the shelf at a good hardware store. (The super-cheapskate might want to settle for a metal snap from a dollar-store dog leash, or another loop-and-knot combo.)

Update: the leash can be hard to attach to and remove from the paddle for someone who isn't familiar with it.  It can also be tricky to remove even after it's familiar, so in an emergency it would be easier to remove the bungee hook rather than undo the loop-and-knot -- if there's a choice in the matter.

West County put-ins, continued

This is the little park next to the water treatment plant in Rodeo. There's room for three or four cars at most. This area is gated off at 4pm (or thereabouts), and the only way to get out is to crash thru a heavy gate or a couple of cyclone fences.


There may be some homeless people camping at the south end of the beach here.

The beach at the little park in Rodeo.

This launch ramp at the Rodeo marina is probably only useful to anyone when the tide is high. I don't think there are any launch fees.

The launch ramp at the Rodeo Marina at a medium-low tide.

At Bayfront Park in Pinole it can be difficult to get to the water at low tide. The area you see in the image below is usually under water and the creek is only a few inches deep. There's a rocky-gravelly-muddy area to the right of the creek where you can reach the water (at low tide), but I think you would still have to wade out a long ways to have enough depth to launch a kayak.

Bayfront Park mudflats.

Ferry Point, Richmond

This is the small beach near Ferry Point at the Miller\Knox Regional Shoreline in Richmond. There's a small parking lot and very limited street parking adjacent to the beach.  I'd guess that afternoon winds would make launching the kayak more difficult here.