The foam block in the front of my Perception Swifty rec boat fell out. I decided to upgrade to a float bag. I didn’t have the boat with when I bought it. They talked about the need to attach it and said I’d probably be able to run a cord through the hole where the carrying handles are. But, when I got home, I realized that hole does go all the way through. The hole where the screw goes down to where the foam block used to be attached is roughly in the middle of the bow, rather than up at the front. And the drain plug is at the stern. Soooooo, any advice on how to attach the front flotation bag or should I just blow it up and hope for the best or wedge a pool noodle in there or something. (P.S. Don’t tell me to buy a different boat. I have a 16 foot fiberglas sea kayak and river runner boat on the way. The Swifty, in effect, will be my loaner.)
Here’s
What I did after loosing a set of Split flotation bags. Bought a beach ball and secured it with Velcro into the bow, seems to stay in place plus the price is right.
Float bags
Sounds like you could attach a line to the wide end of the bag at the back end and run it up to the screw hole that held the foam pillar in place if I understand your post. If that won’t work attaching some type of strap to the leading edge of the foot brace track to hold the bag will usually work. Don’t like the velcro idea at all.
Did you mean to say that the grab
handle screw hole doesn’t go all the way through? Anyway, if there’s no bulkhead, you can drill whatever kind of hole you want up in the bow, and find a fitting that will close the hole.
Here’s what I did on a touring kayak that had no front bulkhead. I got a triangular bag that had loops on all three corners, and fastened the rear corners to the front ends of the footpeg rails. That might have been enough, but I also bought a Harmony drain plug kit and installed it way up on the top of the bow. I was able to epoxy a swivel connection in the hollow of the screw-in drain plug, and connect the nose of the float bag to that. Now I have a drain plug that is sometimes useful, and I can remove the plug so as to detach the nose of the bag from the swivel.
Maybe a lot of fuss to go through for a Swifty. Do you have rear attachment points on the footbraces? Does the bag have loops at the rear end?
Attaching Float Bag in Rec Boat
In my Swifty’s I attached Harmony Micro Bow Bags (a pair of them) into the bow of each boat. I used wide cable ties (available at any Lowe’s or Home Depot) and ran them through the eyelets on the bags and the rails for the foot-pegs. I’ve had the boats out doing self-rescue practice on a lake and flipped the boats over the the bags stayed in just fine.