I regard these rope skegs as being inventions of the devil. A few years ago my wife bought a Romany LV that was fitted with a rope skeg. Before it hit the water I replaced it with the superb Kari-Tek wire operated skeg system. Using a bungee to operate against the rope was a system commonly used years ago for the rudder on small sail boats. The bungee would change its elasticity over time, and if you went fast enough the blade would stretch the bungee, with a predictable swim on the way. YMMV.
https://www.karitek.co.uk/shop/kayak-skeg-systems
Nick.
I have had both kinds of skegs and preferred the wire skeg in action. I’m trying to remain open minded about the rope skeg this time around (since its there!!), which does offer some advantages. I was able to fix mine with nothing more than a knife, for example. On the other hand I never needed to fix my wire skeg but if it gets kinked on a trip you’re kinda screwed. Nevertheless, given the choice I’d choose wire.
My main gripe with the rope skeg is its harder to dislodge jammed pebbles underway. What we really need is a thin sliding skeg cover that retracts forward out of the way when the skeg is deployed, and prevents anything from getting jammed in there when it isn’t. One of you get to work on that, K?
Qajaqman, the Kari-Tek system uses 7 x 7 strand flexible wire, which has never kinked in any of my kayaks. If a stone jams the blade then the wire will bend happily within the box. Other brands of kayak I’ve bought have all used 1 x 19 strand stiff wire, which is liable to kink permanently.
To prevent stone problems, particularly with centreboard slots in small sailboats, a standard technique is to glue a strip of fairly stiff sailcloth over the entire slot, and then run a craft knife down the center of the slot.
Professional coaches I know avoid the stone problem by launching stern first though surf. That impresses me, but doesn’t inspire me to emulate them.
Nick
qajaqman - I prefer a wire skeg too, but if you kink it on a trip you need not be screwed. Pre-cut a cable to the proper length. Coil it & tape it to the bulkhead inside a hatch. My repair kit contains a multi tool, a 2.5mm hex wrench, & spare skeg knob. All set. Swapping a skeg cable is easy. Proper prior preparation prevents…you know the rest.
@Seadddict said:
qajaqman - I prefer a wire skeg too, but if you kink it on a trip you need not be screwed. Pre-cut a cable to the proper length. Coil it & tape it to the bulkhead inside a hatch. My repair kit contains a multi tool, a 2.5mm hex wrench, & spare skeg knob. All set. Swapping a skeg cable is easy. Proper prior preparation prevents…you know the rest.
OK but if you forget to bring or lose or bend or break the spare cable, or multitool, or 2.5mm hex wrench or spare skeg knob… There are too many possible failure points and only one needs to fail in order for you to be screwed. I’ve never had a problem with a wire skeg either, but I know they happen.
The beauty of the rope skeg according to their proponents (again, I’m trying to appreciate them because its what I have at the moment!), is you can effect just about any repair with very little. Until a few weeks agao when I got one again, I’ve only had a rope skeg for 2.5 months out of my 26 years paddling and that was 20 years ago. I remember not liking it primarily because of the pebble jam issue. I would get out in the surf and voila! no skeg! But I’m going to give this skeg another try with an open mind.
@nickcrowhurst said:
Qajaqman, the Kari-Tek system uses 7 x 7 strand flexible wire, which has never kinked in any of my kayaks. If a stone jams the blade then the wire will bend happily within the box. Other brands of kayak I’ve bought have all used 1 x 19 strand stiff wire, which is liable to kink permanently.
To prevent stone problems, particularly with centreboard slots in small sailboats, a standard technique is to glue a strip of fairly stiff sailcloth over the entire slot, and then run a craft knife down the center of the slot.
Professional coaches I know avoid the stone problem by launching stern first though surf. That impresses me, but doesn’t inspire me to emulate them.
Nick
Professional coaches aren’t people I would generally emulate anyway. B) There are many good ones for sure but many of the one’s I’ve been exposed to have had a much higher estimation of their own smarts than I did. I think if you have to launch backwards into surf you have a problem elsewhere that needs to be fixed.
I’m intrigued by the sailcloth idea. Has anyone tried that on a kayak? I wonder if it would help or make matters worse by trapping debri. I might do some testing, using fel-cro rather than glue. I don’t have any sailcloth laying around but I’m sure I can find something similar enough
Googling “sailcloth centerboard slot” and going to the “images” tab will show some useful photos, and there is a good description here:
https://gunningdory.wordpress.com/2015/05/31/centerboard-slot-gasket/
The trick will be to get the correct flexibility of the fabric. Too rigid and it will be difficult to lower the skeg. Too flexible and it will not prevent the ingress of stones.
Nick.
Yeah, I looked at some of those and don’t think they will work so hot with a kayak. Fabric sliding across sand and stone just sounds like a recipe for bad things.
I’m thinking slotted plastic cover rather than fabric, something where the skeg and shroud combine to provide no room for easy ingress of rocks but you can get em out if you need to. Maybe some stiff, heavy HDPE would do the trick.
It’s very common to drill a small hole at the lowest reaches of the skeg and attach a small loop of cord, to allow a partner to free your jammed skeg, but of course, that requires a willing partner. I think some kind of plastic or fabric cover, attached with a string, would also work, solo. A simple strip of duct tape would also work (if you have a partner to remove).
I’ve considered the cord but can’t fathom loops of anything dragging behind me where it can get caught on something. And much of my paddling is solo anyway. My idea is for a slotted plastic cover that would remain in place, rather than a solid one that would be removed by someone else once underway. But I’m not sure it will work and haven’t found the right material to test the idea yet.
Qujagman, the cord gstamer mentions is just a single thin length of cord about 3 to maybe 4 inches under the boat. I and my husband put them on all the boats, and my recall is that some skeg also come with a predrilled hole for that. You are imagining something far more extensive that what is needed for pulling down a sticky skeg.
I can’t say l ever needed to use it on my older p&h boat with a cable skeg. But it gets used a decent bit with the rope skegs. The and the nicest part is that a partner can come by and pull it down if you forgot to confirm that the skeg was clearing before launching.
Yeah if paddling solo not useful once on the water. But l find that even then, it makes it easy to confirm that the skeg is moving freely before launch. Since l launch stern first, so l can just go to the back and check it.
Launching backwards can be useful. I can’t say l have ever launched backwards into surf bigger than three feet, of course less at the actual launch point. But there have been a couple of times where that was the only way a launch was going to happen because of how the waves were breaking and the slope of the beach. Going out backwards was working because my body and a partially attached skirt were keeping things dry enough to get out beyond, bow first was an argument with the water l didn’t need to have.
Greg actually said “loop”, which is how I’ve seen them described many times before. A loop that you can slip a finger or more into. A loop gives you more pulling power. But alas, neither will help a solo paddler much.
qajaqman
Just rechecked and yeah Greg said loop. But it is just a single strand string on my boats. Works fine.
It is not optional with the rope skeg boats, especially paddling in Maine, unless you want a ten minute argument with your skeg at the rocky shorelines just to get started. One tug on the string and the stone is out, and there will be stones. I disagree about it not being helpful for a solo paddler when dealing with a rope skeg. I pulled that cord a lot more than anyone else did, simply because it is rare to get a stone in the skeg box after you are floating. I only needed someone else to pull it when I forgot to check at launch.
But less vital with a well working cable skeg.
@Celia said:
qajaqman
I disagree about it not being helpful for a solo paddler when dealing with a rope skeg. I pulled that cord a lot more >than anyone else did, simply because it is rare to get a stone in the skeg box after you are floating. \
Launching is the only time I ever got stuff stuck.
if alone, launch, check skeg and it’s stuck, you ‘might’ be able to land, fix, relaunch.
what I would generally do (from a description I saw somewhere of Freya’s doing it), prior to launch, I thread a line through the hole in the skeg and attach to the kayak - where I can reach it.
Then, after lauch, if skeg is stuck, pull on the line to free it, then pull line out and put away.
Qajacman
There is something gapping in the conversation here that l can’t put a finger on.
Launching the boat is also my biggest stuck chance. But unless l have to go out in surf or a tricky landing onto deeper water from rocks, l have the stern floating and make sure the skeg is clear before l get into the boat. I just walk to the back and pull the string to make sure it is clear before hopping in.
Are you launching bow first, or sideways?
Yes there is something gapping/missing here. People are missing the fact that I wasn’t inquiring about how to launch a kayak. I know how to launch and land a kayak in flat water and surf, I know my beach conditions, and conditions of wind and waves and surf and sand-pebble beach that is likely to cause jams are the conditions where I’m most likely to want the skeg to work. If I’m going out for a leisurely, placid paddle on an inland lake, then I won’t need the skeg and I can probably do a floating launch anyway so the skeg won’t get jammed. I don’t launch the kayak afloat in surf because a) I’m not going to do a stern first launch because its impractical in my conditions (the stern would likely ground out anyway, defeating the purpose) and b) if I do a floating launch the cockpit will take on water before I get the skirt on and I don’t have a foot pump, and its quite impractical to pump out by hand in those conditions when solo.
A bow forward launch from the beach is the practial and reliable way to launch in these conditions in my area. Your conditions in Maine may be quite different, but I know what works and what doesn’t and what is impractical, inadvisable or just plain stupid for mine.
For these reasons, the potential for getting the skeg jammed on launch will always be present when I need it most.
Qajaqman
Get it, l thought direction may have been the thing that was causing a different response to timing of getting a skeg unstuck.
I do have to mix it up in surf launches. Today was minor when l went out to move the boat so stern first was going to be a lot easier. In bigger stuff l have gladly accepted help to go out bow first.
Raisins - going to have to see how Freya set it up to free the skeg via a line from being in the cockpit. Sounds like a good idea.
@raisins said:
if alone, launch, check skeg and it’s stuck, you ‘might’ be able to land, fix, relaunch.what I would generally do (from a description I saw somewhere of Freya’s doing it), prior to launch, I thread a line through the hole in the skeg and attach to the kayak - where I can reach it.
Then, after lauch, if skeg is stuck, pull on the line to free it, then pull line out and put away.
I’ve thought about something that for years (when I didn’t have a rope skeg), and also thought about a small cover that could be removed the same way. The angle of pull from the cockpit doesn’t seem to favor the former idea as well. You’d basically be pulling the skeg forward, not down, unless you did some sort of vertical maneuver pushing down on the line with the paddle. This too, is an undesirable thing to be doing in 6 foot waves lol.
But maybe the angle isn’t as unfavorable as it seems, so maybe I’ll test the idea.
Freya’s kayaks have rudders, not skegs.
“– I would now (after my student’s learning phase…) never paddle a skeg only kayak for an expedition or even a simple day touring, as it is a waste of energy to do correction strokes with the paddle. Why should I not rather just press slightly my either tip toes to go around a corner instead of taking speed out of my pace to use the paddle for directional control or to edge my kayak? I see no reason…besides kayak teachers have something to teach and it may be fun to learn. But it is not efficient, neither on surfing waves, nor on fast paddling, nor on maneuvering your kayak through narrow slots. And efficiency is a BIG word for me on a kayak trip…and it may end up into more safety…”