Light stuff on rear deck. Camp chair and sleeping pad.
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I load my heavy stuff as close to the cockpit as possible with lighter stuff towards the ends. I like a clear deck and can keep it that way for up to 4 weeks without a resupply. The front deck holds my spare paddle, chart case, GPS and Glacier Gloves. Back deck has my helmet and line used to hang my food.
So Chodups what amount of weight do you have in the hull? Did / do you actually weight it ever? I was wondering if I just put ballast in mine to see what it’s like. Anyone else have any actual weight numbers they have put in a hull of a sea kayak? Thanks!
@Chodups said:
The front deck holds my spare paddle, chart case, GPS and Glacier Gloves. Back deck has my helmet and line used to hang my food.
Chodups, I gotta ask - why do you put the line used to hang your food on the back deck? (By the way, that’s a great picture).
@PaddleDog52 said:
So Chodups what amount of weight do you have in the hull? Did / do you actually weight it ever? I was wondering if I just put ballast in mine to see what it’s like. Anyone else have any actual weight numbers they have put in a hull of a sea kayak? Thanks!
Paddledog, once I loaded a kayak up with a bunch of weight lifting weights, to see what effect a really heavy load would have on the rolling performance of the kayak. I don’t remember how much weight I jammed in, but it was a lot. The kayak rolled effortlessly - way easier than when the kayak is empty. And a heavily loaded kayak handles just fine in big whitewater, and in particular punches through holes very nicely. About the only disadvantage of being heavily loaded is that when you go over a vertical drop, you can really go deep. (I like your picture also).
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@PaddleDog52 said:
So Chodups what amount of weight do you have in the hull? Did / do you actually weight it ever? I was wondering if I just put ballast in mine to see what it’s like. Anyone else have any actual weight numbers they have put in a hull of a sea kayak? Thanks!
130 pounds is the starting weight for my gear and food. As I eat through the food (and burn smelly socks) the weight decreases and it gets much easier to load gear into the boat.
@pmmpete said:
@Chodups said:
The front deck holds my spare paddle, chart case, GPS and Glacier Gloves. Back deck has my helmet and line used to hang my food.Chodups, I gotta ask - why do you put the line used to hang your food on the back deck? (By the way, that’s a great picture).
No particular reason other than it’s usually wet in the morning and I try to keep the inside of the hatches dry. It is secured really well back there and doesn’t get in the way of anything.
The boat is a real slug carrying all that weight but rock solid in ragged water.
I like that photo, too. One of my trip partners (Dave Resler) took it crossing Caamano Sound on the BC north coast. There are more photos of that trip here: http://3meterswell.blogspot.com/2015/11/bella-bella-2-prince-rupert-2015.html
Chodups has it exactly right…The one thing I’d also like to mention here, stuff on deck is not exclusively about safety/weight/balance(although, these are more than enough reasons for me personally, not to flirt with disaster): No matter how bombproof your roll or how secure you have extraneous things batten down on decks, in my experience all bets are off in either breaking ocean surf or freshwater rapids above Cl. II. Unless of course, you don’t mind wet or loss of valuable things one might need later in the trip. Sometimes Mother Nature is a great equalizer no matter how good the preparation or skill set.
But hey, I don’t hang food up when I camp, either. >:)
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My Necky Vector SOT has a really cool strap thingie in the tank well that I like a lot. They called it a possum strap. Kind of like a compression strap on a backpack. It allows me to cinch my dry bag and other stuff in the tank well really tight. Takes a few extra minutes to do up the straps, but I’m more confident that if I were to go upside down, stuff would stay put. Unlike the picture, my Necky doesn’t have a rudder.
On my new Eddyline SOT, the tank well has the standard shock cord and hooks. I’ll have to see how that works for securement. Perhaps I can retrofit a better strap system like the Necky has? My Eddyline has a flat spot with a shock cord just in front of the foot well that’s intended for a fishing tackle box. I’m still tinkering with what I’ll put there? Now that I have a small day hatch right in front of my seat, I can get to stuff inside my kayak (rain gear, etc.) a lot easier. The day hatch has a bucket insert that can hold snacks, camera, etc. My Eddyline does have a rudder.
@Raftergirl said:
On my new Eddyline SOT, the tank well has the standard shock cord and hooks. I’ll have to see how that works for securement. Perhaps I can retrofit a better strap system like the Necky has? My Eddyline has a flat spot with a shock cord just in front of the foot well that’s intended for a fishing tackle box. I’m still tinkering with what I’ll put there? Now that I have a small day hatch right in front of my seat, I can get to stuff inside my kayak (rain gear, etc.) a lot easier. The day hatch has a bucket insert that can hold snacks, camera, etc. My Eddyline does have a rudder.
A simple solution on your eddyline would be to use para-cord or other rope and tighten down with a trucker hitch.
Raftergirll, Hobie Revolutions come with little “T” shaped cleats about an inch long around the rear cargo area which the zig-zag bungie cord hooks over. The cleats screw into sockets in the hull. This looked like a real insecure system, so on my Revolution I removed the bungie cord and replaced the little cleats with little loops or padeyes available from Hobie which screw into the sockets. I use nylon straps and mini-carabiners to strap gear into the Revolution’s rear cargo area, which is a lot more secure than a bungie cord, but not as nice as the “possum strap” on your Necky. I don’t know if you can do anything similar on your Eddyline.
I would not drill the eddyline without asking them if it will take the load.
Yes, I’d rather not drill any holes if it’s not needed. Although I might want to add a Railblaza Star Base at one of those round spots to the left & right behind the seat. Those spots are designed for rod holders that come standard on the Angler model. I have some other Railblaza accessories, like a safety flag that I would use on larger lakes like Lake Powell. Still deciding about that. I would have have inside access to add a washer for extra security to those spots.
I bought some of these adhesive lash points to use in various locations on the kayak. They might work as attachment points for a better gear securement in the tank well. I’m thinking maybe a stretch net sort of thing that could go over the regular shock cord system as a back-up to hold things better. Or maybe just one of these right behind the seat and I can run a strap from that point to the U-cleat that the rear carry handle is secured with. That would give me one extra strap over top of stuff. I have time to tinker with ideas over the winter.
http://www.austinkayak.com/products/19155/Sea-to-Summit-Self-Adhesive-Lash-Points-4-Pack.html
Don’t worry about drilling holes in your kayaks to mount gear. I do a lot of kayak fishing, and have added a lot of fishing gear to my 13’ Hobie Revolution and my 13’ Ocean Kayak Trident. For example, shown below is a picture of my Revolution set up for downrigger trolling. Use stainless bolts and nylock nuts, backed up with fender waters or backer plates, and seal the bolt holes with Marine Goop or Aquaseal.
very nice pmmpete
@Raftergirl said:
Yes, I’d rather not drill any holes if it’s not needed. … I bought some of these adhesive lash points to use in various locations on the kayak. They might work as attachment points for a better gear securement in the tank well. I’m thinking maybe a stretch net sort of thing that could go over the regular shock cord system as a back-up to hold things better.
If you have any concerns about how well anchor points will hold, just install more of them. However, check with those having experience regarding whether adhesive pads will stay put, because not many adhesives bond well to polyethylene. I’d have no fear at all about attaching additional anchor points by drilling, because providing more of them than supplied by the factory would reduce the stress on all of them.
Then, if it were me, I’d get rid of any bungie cords, and also forget about nets, straps, and other special items, and just use paracord in some kind of zig-zag, shoelace, or diamond-hitch pattern. Any of those patterns also eliminates the need for a trucker’s hitch to cinch it all down, since you keep pulling things “tight enough” as you work out the slack so that all you need is a finishing knot such as two half-hitches (the trucker’s hitch was mentioned by an earlier poster, which is great for cinching-down a single line but is pointless for finishing-off any kind of back-and-forth weave which will simply maintain however much tension you provide as you tighten the various parts) . This might sound complicated to a person who’s looking for ready-to-buy items of that sort, but it’s actually every bit as fast and easy, and even more adaptable. Still, if you can find the right ready-made item that works like a cargo net, it would do the job.
Just to illustrate the idea, to secure a dry bag or canoe pack of any size or shape to the floor of my canoe, I use a single diamond hitch woven through just four anchor points on the floor (nothing could be simpler or faster). I cinch it moderately tight, so that even lacking the “walled-in” storage area that you have, the gear stays where I put it.
I’ll be attaching the adhesive lash points to an Eddyline ABS plastic kayak, not a HDPE kayak. The package says they are good for adhering to smooth surfaces such as epoxy, polyurethane, plastic, and fiberglass, but not rotomolded HDPE boats. My biggest concern about adding pad eyes is putting them in areas that I can’t access from inside the kayak to add backing washers for strength. I did drill plenty of holes in my Poly kayak to attach Railblaza mounts, paddle clips, and pad eyes. I used well nuts. They work nicely & provide a neoprene seal inside the hull.
I originally bought the adhesive lash points to put inside my Eddyline SOT to be able to clip in the paracord leashes that I have on all my gear bags. The leashes allow me to slide stuff into position inside the hull, but reel it in when I unpack. It keeps me from losing smaller stuff inside the hull.
@pmmpete said:
Don’t worry about drilling holes in your kayaks to mount gear. I do a lot of kayak fishing, and have added a lot of fishing gear to my 13’ Hobie Revolution and my 13’ Ocean Kayak Trident. For example, shown below is a picture of my Revolution set up for downrigger trolling. Use stainless bolts and nylock nuts, backed up with fender waters or backer plates, and seal the bolt holes with Marine Goop or Aquaseal.
Hey pmmpete,
Are those Chaco Outcross that you are wearing? Been considering those. How do you like them? How sticky is the sole? Anything you don’t like about them?
Jon
Not sure if these would work, might be overkill, but could probably use west systems g-flex epoxy and one or two of these.
http://northwater.com/collections/ropes-tie-downs-hardware/products/loop-track-anchor
pmmpete
12:19PM Flag
Don’t worry about drilling holes in your kayaks to mount gear. I do a lot of kayak fishing, and have added a lot of fishing gear to my 13’ Hobie Revolution and my 13’ Ocean Kayak Trident.
Totally different material than an eddyline carbonlite 2000. If you can get in to back up with a decent washer on a flat surface I would guess OK.
I use these (http://northwater.com/collections/ropes-tie-downs-hardware/products/underdeck-anchors) to suspend the underdeck bag and to secure water and food against the front bulkhead. The North Water UnderDeck bag comes with 4 lashtabs (2 are shown) and I added another one along the keel. I used Vynabond to adhere them. Not sure what to use on poly or Carbonite.
