My better half’s skeg wire kinked on her Seaward-built silhouette in the control slider recess yesterday. I figured, no big deal, I have a spare Valley wire & I’ll just replace it when we get home.
Well, best laid plans…
I’ve done Valley & NDK skeg wires in the past, and they’re super easy. BUT…the wire on the Silhouette appears to be bonded or crimped onto the blade (Along with a good deal of bi-metallic corrosion where the stainless wire meets the aluminum blade). Seaward’s website sells just the wire, so I must not be seeing something. Anyone replaced one on a Foster boat before?
It may be epoxied into the blade…
…in which case you can free it by heating the blade with a propane torch or heat gun. Give it a whirl and see what happens; since the blade is aluminum, you won’t hurt anything.
Once you get the cable out, you have options for replacing it. If you don’t want to glue the new one in (I wouldn’t), you can probably drill and tap the skeg blade for a stainless set screw to hold the cable. You just have to run it in at an angle to the cable hole. Drilling a long, small diameter hole in a thin blade can be tricky, so clamp it securely and drill slowly.
For greater holding power, you can drill a 1/4" hole through the skeg blade at the point where the cable hole and the set screw hole intersect. That allows the set screw to bend the cable slightly when you tighten it. I’ve seen commercial skeg blades done this way (VCP, IIRC).
Seaward Kayaks
Seaward kayaks have a transferable life time guarantee. Just contact them. It may be covered under warranty.
They use JB Weld
According to Seaward. They emailed us back after asking how to attach the wire.
The way the blade is designed, I can’t put a set screw in there, so it looks like I’ll be buying some JB Weld – it held up 6 years the first time, and is still bonded to the blade.