Hello everyone. I am completely new to kayaking; I just went twice to a reservoir and fell in love with it. I bought a kayak I found on sale, the lifetime payette 116 sit in kayak. I also bought a spray skirt that should fit the size.
The kayak rim has a very slight lip and because of this the spray skirt won’t stay on at all. Any suggestions?
Maybe not all a rim issue
You got this at Walmart maybe?
Anyway, I see a big seat back sticking up well above the coaming in back. That usually makes it tougher for a spray skirt to fit well. The seat back keeps pulling it off unless there is a whole lot of spare material.
This is a rec boat not designed for conditions that make a spray skirt more crucial. To ask the question, do you need a full spray skirt or would a half deck do you? It wouldn’t help with things like rolling, but then again neither would this boat. It would keep you a bit drier.
2 Likes
agree with celia
That boat doesn’t really benefit from a spray skirt. Either use the boat without a skirt until you are ready to upgrade, or if you are doing stuff that needs a skirt, upgrade to a boat more appropriate for whatever that use is.
3 Likes
not a coaming
I’ve seen those Payettes at Lowes and T J Maxx. Honestly, kind of a clunky design and not something I would use in anything but a shallow pond. You really do get what you pay (or don’t) for with kayaks. The lip around the cockpit in the Payette is just to reinforce the moulding and is not designed to be deep enough to be a true coaming. The cockpit is really too big to effectively support one anyway - it would just implode once water collected on it. Return the sprayskirt if possible and get your mobey back. And, as others have recommended, limit your paddling to the moderate waters for which that boat is intended. Meaning no fast, rough or deep water.
If you find you really get into kayaking you will likely want to upgrade eventually. Then you may end up with a kayak designed for a skirt.
2 Likes
Not necessarily true. I have a Lifetime Cruze kayak and had the same issue but I was able to make a homemade spray skirt. To the responses that are picking on you for the kayak you bought, they can screw off cuz I love taking my cheap kayak through heavy rapids!
Not that it really matters since the question was asked 8 years ago, but since you are new here you should understand that giving a new paddler experienced advice on the limitations and safe use of a specific kayak model is not “picking on them”. We are trying to help. Cheap kayaks are low priced because they are short on the safety features that are needed for more challenging waters. They have their place, and miany if us started with them, but it is important to understand how and where they are safe to use. We see tragic deaths every year of folks who take these kinds of boats into circumstances for which they are not equipped.
I hope your use in “heavy rapids” includes outfitting your recreational kayak with flotation bags in the bow and stern. A swamped kayak without bulkheads will sink and often not be recoverable.
Honestly, if you have not capsize tested your boat in shallow water to understand its limitations you could be in a world of hurt when those “fun rapids” dump you. that big cockpit is not likely to retain your homemade skirt and the boat will fill up and be too heavy to recover. Better be ready to swim. I’m going to assume you wear a PFD for your outings, right?
5 Likes
The coaming on that is decoration rather than a functional feature. Return the sprayskirt and get drypants or Drysuit. If you’re adding a sprayskirt your performance expectations will likely result in a better than even chance that you’ll be upgrading from that kayak so searching around for an instructional program is going to be your best investment.
4 Likes
Many of the prolific posters on this site know nothing about recreational kayaks. They’ll tell you they are only ok to use them in knee deep water and 10 ft from shore, but other than that you’re risking your life!
IMO rec-kayaks equipped with some capsize flotation ether as manufactured or added by the user are suitable for anyplace someone would feel a canoe is safe to go. The canoe IMO can also benefit with additional flotation as most will stay above water barely after being swamped.
In both cases when you go over in a rec-kayak or a canoe you are swimming and you need both PFD and thermal protection depending on the water temp. Both can be righted and reentered with proper skills. There is a great deal of safety in not being on the water alone when it comes to assisted compared to solo reentry. Watching videos and reading on the methods of reentry are not enough and something that should be practiced.
I personally constantly look at the situation at hand and if I’m alone or with others and their level of being able to help me or me them, the weather conditions, water temp etc. This time of the year here it is tempting to get out on the water and many that are ill prepared will be.
Rec-kayaks especially the upper tier models are fine boats for many people using them as intended and mindful of the risk they are looking at. That is or should be the mindset really for all boating, paddle and powered.
IMO if you are out in a canoe or a rec-kayak and need the benefit of a spray skirt to keep wave action out of the boat you are out in the wrong conditions for 99% of the people using these boats. Some exceptions might be the guys that pack their canoes totally full of floatation with the intention of running white water. That’s a special class of highly skilled people doing what I would call a fringe usage of a canoe and not really what a canoe was designed for.
2 Likes
I feel the same way about a rec boat in white water (not “fast water”) as I do about a rec boat in the surf zone:
Take yourself out but don’t endanger anyone else.
sing
1 Like
I talked my younger brother into trying a rec boat in the surf on a gentle day. It was full in a minute. Relatively painless lesson that was never repeated.
2 Likes
What is there to know about rec kayaks except where they don’t belong?
They are a large class of boats from big box pool toys to properly designed boats that can handle more than a beginner should attempt.
And there is apparently a possibility of actively “mis-knowing…” Don’t pay attention to the words being said, but rather to what transpired through the video:
sing
2 Likes
Indeed, “rec boats” include a very large group of dissimilar boats. Defining them in terms of construction or design or cost seems futile. Grouping kayaks by best use (whitewater, sea, touring, etc) makes some sense, but it doesn’t help define rec boats. After all, aren’t all kayaks for recreation (except those used by subsistence hunters and fishers in the far north and maybe a few professionals who somehow make a living from the sport) ?
And kayaking for recreation can be dangerous with any kind of boat, on any kind of water, and at any skill level, partly because getting better means pushing a bit beyond what we already can do well. The constructive advice shared here can enhance safety and increase enjoyment for everyone by explaining, based on individual circumstances, how hard to push and under what conditions.
Better to educate than denigrate.
1 Like
Reading through this thread, what I see is mostly PNetters trying to educate (myself excluded in the thread I linked to). But, what you have is someone who revived a dormant thread because s/he reacted negatively to the fairly accurate advice/ being offered and insisted s/he loves taking his/her Lifetime kayak through “heavy rapids!” Don’t know what what classification is being referred to, Ken Whiting or Eric Jackson could likely run a LifeTime through a class II/III without much trouble. Not the case for the rest of weekend warrior paddlers and generally not to be recommended.
Essentially, one person on the thread is intent on doing whatever contrary to pretty good info being offered. Certainly it is that person’s perogative (as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else). In the video that I linked, active misinformation and bad examples of what not to do are being presented as “tips for beginners.” So, for beginners, good luck, especially for advice/examples that are free. Who should they trust for good information, safe training and practice? Best suggestion - go take lessons and get input from paid certified coaches.
sing
4 Likes
All we can do is post the best information we can, and be grateful when others who are better informed chime in with more. There will always be those who refuse to be educated … not much we can do about that.
What’s the old proverb … you can lead an ass to water but you can’t make him/her drink?
1 Like
Trolls are back ? Twitter sux worse now i have heard
I bought a liquidlogic Saluda last summer and seals 7.0 spray deck. There is enough lip to hook the skirt fore and aft but it would pull loose at the sides. A simple clip made from cutting board hooks under the inside lip and over to capture the skirt. That solved the problem. The spray deck still didn’t cover my knees. The spray skirt had the same issue plus the seat back was too tall. Shortening the seat back 5" solved that. Note: The fabric is a little loose but I found the seat to be more comfortable. Finally, I added two snaps on either side of the cockpit just forward of the seat (the “sneak” skirt allows me to enter/exit the boat w/o removing it). I solved the short deck by adding three snaps to the back edge of the deck and used a piece of old drysuit to extend it. Rember the snaps for the skirt? They secure the deck extension perfectly. Now I have a boat that is perfect for paddling the rivers/creeks in our area. One other note: The spray skirt is only expected to keep me dry as long as I keep the deck above water.
I think the little lip is for two things:
-
they are structural, they add more strength to the deck
-
they are meant to keep you from cutting yourself on the coaming.
Neither of those things have to do with a sprayskirt.
A sprayskirt is at its best as a rollover seal and those boats cannot be rolled, they have too much belly to come back upright.
A dry ride has more to do with your paddle stroke and where you choose to paddle.