'Case anybody is interested, I got rid of my stock VCP Nordkapp footbrace rod after doing an endo on a reef - the aluminum tube broke off its failsafe pin holding on the fibreglass flange, whereupon I submarined inside up to my upper hips. I could not get out of my boat. I grabbed some rocks at the side of the surge channel, and gulped for air. Motorists watching the storm ran down to my assistance, and helped me ashore. I installed Yakima footbraces immediately, whick worked well for a year, until I put on a rudder, and had to go to a VCP butterfly bar for rudder control. A few years ago, Seaward came out with a new system that looks like the Yakima footrests, but uses butterfly peddals left and right, permitting the use of a foot pump on the bulkhead between the peddals. This has worked well until this summer when i was rounding Brooks Peninsula in moderate swell, which was breaking at Clerk Point on the boulder beach and out about a mile over the reefs. The stainless wire I had retrofitted in place of the nylon web rudder lines (inside the cockpit) corroded the aluminum channel sinch device; ofcourse, it let go at the worst possible momment, cocking the rudder so that I was turning toward the lee shore, just where I didn't want to go. I finally got the rudder up and punched out of the 6 foot surf. My friends, all with skegs, had a good laugh, since I had been bugging them all the way down from Cape Scott about how superior rudders are - I mean were!!! Doug Lloyd Victoria, BC *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
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