Friday, May 4, 2007

Plumbing Your Kayak Revisited




Some good folks have written and pointed out that I forgot to include pictures of paddles in yesterdays post. Oops! Here then are the missing photos. In the first one you see a close up of the paddle button. What you should see is a small bevel at the top of the cut so the button can easily slip into the pipe. Some people cut a notch. I've been procrastinating and will get around to this later.
In the second photo you can see how I removed the drip rings from an old paddle and slipped them over the pipes. This lifts the pipe ends off the deck making it easier to slide the paddle shafts into the pipes. This is especially welcome when you're on the water.
In the last picture you see how the blades are held in place. I added a couple of smaller black bungees to help hold the paddles on the deck when I'm in the surf. I choose to cut the pipes short so they would not protrude over the fore deck hatch. Longer pipes hold the paddle shafts more securely in dynamic water conditions such as surf. Thanks, the multitude of kayakers who showed me how to do this.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I like the longer pipes. Sounds promising. Thanks for the pics/description.

Doug Lloyd