[Paddlewise] AvocetSkegrepairUpdate

Group,


I wanted to discuss the frustrating experience I had with repairing my skeg on
my Avocet after I landed with it deployed a few weeks ago, and get some
feedback from people with more experience.


         By way of background:


 This happened the day before we launched Larry and Arthur on their
LaCostaDelGolfo expedition, and I had just been in salt water, with slight
whitecaps, for the first time. It was thrilling, but I was nervous and landed
with the skeg still out. 


        When I bought the boat, the guys at GROKAYAKS in Michigan said,
paraphrasing now, that lotsa people make this mistake and it is no big deal to
repair. Well, it turned out to be a big deal, mainly because of the nature of
the cable. 


      What happened was not as bad as I thought. The skeg fin did not break,
which would have been much worse. The stainless steel cable kinked. There I
was, with 3 wonderful guys from the paddling club, all of us wet, standing out
on a February afternoon with post-paddling chills (thank God for wetsuits and
paddling jackets and thermoses of hot chocolate), looking at the underside of
my boat.  We managed to figure out that the cable had kinked. The men had
tools, of course, so we got it out, straightened it somewhat, and re-installed
it. Stainless steel has quite a memory, so it was clear the cable needed to be
replaced. 


       I like the guys at GROKAYAKS, they have always been very nice on the
phone and Larry has met them and likes them a lot. I called them for a cable.
The first one they sent was one millimeter too big. They sent another one,
which arrived last weekend while I was gone on a business trip. 


        We have a HUGE Mardi Gras parade in my neighborhood the Saturday
before Mardi Gras, so I got around to the job yesterday. To my amazement, the
ends of the new cable were flat and slightly frayed. The hole in the slider is
very small. No amount of working with those cable ends would make them fit.


        I went to the neighborhood hardware store.  Thanks to the graciousness
and skills of the owner, who was kind enough to cut off those frayed ends, I
ended up with a cable I could work with. He used a table-mounted cable cutter
to remove the flat ends and then the abrasion wheel of a Dremel tool to smooth
them out.  In order for the skeg to work, the length has to be just right.
Fortunately, he got it within an inch. It's about an inch too long, but better
to be too long than too short.  Still, it took me 2 hours of trying over and
over again before I was able to get the cable into the slider in such a way as
it would STAY there after I inserted the holding screw into the slider, which
is located by the cockpit. Inserting the other end of the cable into the skeg
blade was easy.  


        Where the cable enters the slider, if the ends are smooth, it is not
hard to get it into the slider. It is very hard to get it in FAR ENOUGH that
it will make contact with the holding screw sufficient to stay in when in use.
I was hoping to be able to push the excess cable through the slider to the
outside, but the exit hole is too small. 


     In my opinion, this multi-stranded cable is a design flaw in an otherwise
fabulous boat. It would be much easier to deal with if it were a solid cable.
When you combine that with a small exit hole it means the cable length has to
be exact, and you have to have the right tools on hand to make those
multi-strand ends fit into the hole. I think this repair would have been very
difficult out in the field. I don't know anybody who carries cable cutters and
cordless Dremels in their kayaks. 


     It's working fine now, but since the cable is about half an inch too long
I have a piece of duct tape across the slider at the point of maximum
deployment, in order to keep from having the fin sticking too far out of the
yak when deployed. At least now I can FINALLY get back on the water.  Looking
forward to any feedback any of you may have.  


    One final thing....I have come up with a tool bag to keep under the seat
in my Jeep and will always carry a multi-tool in my yak. I felt like a
dum-dum, standing there with no tools.   MARSANNE 





 Marsanne Golsby 





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