In every photograph I have seen of sea kayaks, the ones that have deck lines (not bungees) show them in a triangle from the bow to just in front of the cockpit, and on the rear deck in a triangle from just behind the cockpit to the stern. My question is, why couldn’t you run one continuous line from front to back through the eyelets? You would have line on the sides of the cockpit in this configuration. Is anything wrong with that?
Deck lines
My Prijon Kodiak came with the deck lines just as you describe and I have no problems with it.
Perimeter lines around cockpit…
…present more of an entanglement hazzard (for paddle folat rescues, re-entry and rolls, and even when just carrying the boat on your shoulder).
You have the coaming to hold on to in that area and don’t need the lines there.
Also, with one continuous line, one failure is a total failure.
I second
What Greyak said. I would think that a perimeter line adjacent to the cockpit would sometines get in the way of attaching your sprayskirt too.
And a long line is going to be much stretchier as well.
Jim
hands
That’s an area that gets a lot of contact – sculling/draw stokes, skirt on & off, rolling, etc. I wouldn’t want anything there that I could get hung up on.
yeah
I would think it would make getting the Skirt on a pain, and possablly cause leaks too.
Well…
I haven’t experienced any of the perceived problems that have been described here on my boat of several years.
http://www.marinerkayaks.com/mkhtml/CSTRVTXT.html