I had to remove the Smart Track foot brace/rudder control from my Stellar S14S because my legs are too long and more importantly, I didn’t try before I bought.
I’m looking for ideas on how to control the rudder with what remains. The original control cables exit the hull where the braces were. Too far to reach with my hands.
Some sort of sliding mechanism might work but would have to be controlled with my legs. Velcro leg straps attached attached to the cables?
I’ve been looking at freezing the rudder’s left and right movement and using it for a skeg. I can raise and lower it. Freezing the pivot point doesnt look like a good idea.
Help.
Newbee here, but I do have 1 idea that may help, or at least give you a place to start from:
One idea I have seen discussed is to make a wood bulkhead panel that sits against the existing bulkhead to make a rigid surface, strong enough to be less prone to flexing. Next make a wood swing arm. Think of a very short letter T with the trunk of the T sitting against the bulkhead. Top of the T towards the cockpit, trunk of the T against the bulkhead, T laying down on the bottom of the kayak.
As it sits there it would rock left and right, the amount of distance equal to the length of the “trunk” of the T. So if the “trunk” was 4 inches tall you’d get about 4" of movement to each cable head. Attach the cables to the extreme left and right of the swing arm.
The only problem with such an apparatus is to keep it from sliding backwards towards the seat when not held by the feet. This is easily solved by making a tie at the trunk of the T, and passing it through a set of holes in the center of the plywood. Other materials can be use too. Lexan, poly carbonate and so on. And then secure the supporting 2nd bulkhead to the one that came in the kayak with screws or rivets from the inside of the forward compartment.
In the discussions on building kayaks there have been several ideas put forth. All about making the kayaks from scratch, but the ideas of how things are done may be of some help.
Held against the existing bulkhead from the cockpit side and passing some screws (coated in Lexel) from front to back or even using pop-rivets from the front side of the factory bulkhead could be an easy way to do this. I for one favor screws because from time to time you may need to re-tie the trunk of the T shaped swing arm, as the older line wears out and to remove the supporting bulkhead would be necessary to do that. Using a screw that is just long enough is the key, so the points are not sticking through to the cockpit side for you to snag a foot, or bootie on.
May help. May not.
But worth some thought either way.
The boat is a SOT which might not matter.
You should be able to move the entire pedal assembly farther forward. Just would require drilling a couple of new mounting holes. You might need to install longer cables or splice a new section to the existing cables.
I’m not a fan of the Smart Track pedal system. The way the cables are routed at the pedals stresses the cables too much and they tend to fray and break. My wife went through 3 sets of cables before we replaced the foot pedal assemblies with Sea-Lect foot pedal assemblies. No problems since. The Smart Track rudder assembly is fine.
Using your hands to operate the rudder would not work as you generally need to make frequent changes to the rudder position as you paddle. Using the rudder in a fixed position generally does not work either in a long boat. Skegs are generally placed about 2/3 the way back from the bow and does not tend to turn the boat whereas the rudder placed all the way at the stern has a lot of turning effect. A fixed rudder would make the boat highly susceptible to leecocking if not constantly adjusted very precisely.
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I agree with every statement.
Some rowing shells have the rudder controlled by a continuous loop attached to one rower’s foot. Steering is accomplished by rotating the foot to move the rudder cable (somewhat like rotating your foot from the gas to the brake in a car but not as exaggerated). I don’t know the exact details of your boat enough to know if the geometry would work, but it might be simple enough to rig something up to try, and refine later if it works.
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I’ve been thinking along those lines.
I am and have for a long time been a fan of the T-bar, or tiller, steering system.
Extend the cables some and find a way to put a pivot just beyond your feet. Make a T, attach the cables to the two legs, attach it so the pivot does its thing.
Put any kind of footrest you need under it and give it a go.
It is what Olympic boats use, and the pivot can be on something that stretches to the gunwales.
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