RE: [Paddlewise] deck rigging

At 12:22 AM 9/30/02 -0400, Severn Clay wrote:
>Gabriel,
>Does QCC Kayaks sell those nifty recessed fittings, or are they just an
>example?  I must admit  I'm reluctant to put too large holes in the S&G hull
>because intuitively it seems like it introduces more weakness rather than
>spreading out the load.

I believe that QCC kayaks does sell the fittings.

I was asking the same questions that you did when I was considering what to 
do for deck rigging on the cedar strip Outer Island I finished in 
June.  You might be interested in my experiences.

I also thought the recessed deck fittings (actually, thru hull fittings) 
might be a good way to go.  I contacted QCC directly about them.  They told 
me that the fittings would probably *not* work for a wood boat because the 
sleeve was not long enough.  They sent me a sample and while I didn't try 
it on a test panel (actually, the piece I cut out for the cockpit) it 
looked like it likely wouldn't work.  The cost of the deck fittings was 
also pretty high.

I've also seen some nice deck fittings on a variety of productions boats 
like the ones on the Kajaksport page 
<http://www.gokajaksport.com/hardware.html>
that could go into a recess.  I decided that the price was a bit more than 
I wanted to spend and extra work in cutting the holes and building the 
recesses was more than I wanted to do after working on the boat for five 
months.  The Newfound woodworks page also lists the Kajaksport fitting that 
has a center screw so that they can be attached directly to the deck.  They 
run about $3.50 but look like they'd get the job done.

On my Northbay I actually did what you initial described (bungies going 
into the deck) for my hatch cover hold-downs and the set of bungies just in 
front of the cockpit.  I got the idea after seeing Doug Van Dorens Betsie 
Bay Valkerie.  They also run the decklines through the hull.  I didn't look 
at how they fixed the bungies/cord under the deck but had to wonder how 
they kept water from going through the hulls in such a way that it would be 
easy to replace them if necessary.  My solution was decidedly low-tech.  I 
bought some wood dowel and cut it into pieces about 1" long, then drilled a 
hole through the middle and epoxied the piece under the deck centered 
around the feed through hole.  The hole in the dowel was big enough such 
that a knot tied in the bungie would prevent it from going back through the 
deck.  I simply plugged the hole underneath with a cork.  I'm about the 
revarnish the deck on the Northbay and pulled off all the deck lines.  Most 
of the corks were so dry that they just fell apart. They'll have to be 
replaced.  I have heard of another method which uses ping-pong balls, cut 
in half, and attached under the deck with 3M 5200.  I've also wondered how 
cutting a piece of inner tube stretched around the bungie/deck line under 
the deck might work.  Finally, if you're going to drill holes through the 
deck be sure to use the "drill-fill-drill" method.  That is; drill a hole 
larger than what you'll need, fill it with epoxy/resin, then drill through 
the epoxy/resin so that the wood is protected.

I also played around with the soft-loop webbing fed through the hole 
technique as described on several sites.  Again, using the piece I cut out 
of the deck for the cockpit I cut a rectangular hole (with the corners 
rounded) and then filled it in with epoxy/resin with some pigment to make 
it black.  I slot was cut in the middle so that a folded over piece of 
webbing would just fit through.  Then I cut a small piece of wood (from 
1/4" luan) with a similar slot in it.  About 3" of webbing was folded over, 
fed through the slot in the wood and then bent underneath (and tacked with 
hot glue). The piece of wood was then painted with epoxy/resin to attach 
the webbing to the wood.  The webbing was then fed through the "test hull" 
so that just a small loop of webbing showed through.  I glued the wood 
underneath the hull with some 3M 5200.  It looked pretty good but I thought 
it was more work than I wanted to spend.  It took about 45 minutes to make 
each loop and I figured I'd need about 14 of them.  Ross Liedy describes 
that technique with pictures at hs website 
(http://www.blueheronkayaks.com/kayak/oi/deckfittings.htm>.  (Looks like 
Ross has a new website!).

Here's still another possible method attaching decklines to the hull.  I 
did this for my flush mount hatch cover under deck tie downs.  I took a 
length of pine about 3/8" thick, 1" wide, and a couple of feet long and cut 
a 1/4" notch down it's length with my router table.  Then I turned it over 
and beveled the edges, then cut it into pieces about 1 1/2" long.  I glued 
the pieces to the inside of the hull and then just threaded a bungie cord 
through the notch.

So what did I ended up doing for deck lines on my Outer Island?  I went 
with the simple method of folding over a piece of webbing and using a brass 
screw with a finish washer.  The CLC website has a good picture of the 
method on the "Fitting Out" section on the Shop Tips page.  I figure that 
if I want to do something more complex later it would be easy to fill in 
and cover up the holes.





>Alex,
>I agree completely about the perimeter deck line (needing to be rope, not
>bungee).  Haven't gotten there yet, though I'll have a lot of regular pad
>eyes left over if I don't use them for the shock cord.  One wouldn't want to
>use regular line through holes in the hull, of course, because it wouldn't
>fill the holes and keep the water out.  The Pygmy pad eyes seem like they
>could get broken off easily during a re-entry, which is why I'm looking for
>an alternative.  Does this Real Kayaks have a web site? ;-)

You can get those "U" shaped pad eyes in plastic or nylon.  They're pretty 
easy to find in plastic and that's what many commercial vendors have used. 
I've never seen one break but a pad-eye made of nylon would be more 
durable. The Wilderness Systems Arctic Hawk uses pad-eyes for it's 
decklines and they seem to work well.  I essentially copied the Arctic Hawk 
deckline layout for my Northbay.

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