I think the skeg design is poor at best on my Boreal Designs Baffin P3. Found out that the small piece of bungee cord is responsible to lower the skeg when you turn the dial at the cockpit had snapped.
I bought two thicknesses of bungee (one being the same thickness) and repaired it yesterday. One was too thin, the other seems ok, but not great. It barely wants to lower, and not to the point where it’s going to be reliable on the water.
Has anyone come up with an upgrade/improvement to the Baffin Series Skeg system? PLEASE!?
I have never even seen one, but a question comes to my mind:
Can you replace the bungee with a stainless spring?
I dislike the use of bungees for any such types of gear because in all cases the bungees don’t last all that long and also because I see that in the case of rudder peddles the replacement of another bungee is a pain in the neck to get to it. In the case of Sea-Lect peddles I believe I am doomed to just have to fight to replace the small bungees about once a year because of the angles of the connections. But in a skeg box maybe a stainless spring could be used instead? If the spring can’t be attached at the place you need it to pull on the blade you may be able to use a nylon loop to connect to the blade and then connect the spring to that loop.
All just passing thought for me because as I said, I have never even seen one of that brand of skeg, so I may be way off base here.
It may be that you didn’t make the bungee short/tight enough. I’ve replaced the bungee on my Baffin P2 without issue. I’m pretty sure I used 3/16" as that’s what I normally have on hand, but it was a couple of years ago.
Oh ya, I actually had to do it three times, as the first time I used a thinner piece, wasn’t good enough. The second time I used the same thickness as the original, and I didn’t get it quite tight enough, had to cut it, do another piece. There is no way to get it more tight than what it is now.
The only thing I can think of is that the bungee is not as good a quality, although they are the same thickness.