"Let go of the handbrake.. "

Speed improvement of your kayak is not only for handymen

Get inspired to take the tools into your own hands, and dare to do it your self

I'm Jacob Norris, a kayaker from Denmark in the Nordics - welcome to my blog about kayak related topics. My passion for kayaking and way of getting enough excercise goes hand in hand.

I love kayaking, and I enjoy it even more if I can go fast. I also love rough water, waves and action, so my choice of kayak is often a sea kayak. Not the most obvious racing kayak, but there is a narrow selection of FSKs (fast sea kayaks) out there.

My journey through the world of kayaking has taken me though many corners of the kayak world, and I enjoy sharing good and less good experience to fellow kayakers in hope of that others could bennefit of the experience.

In this blog edition I will talk about how you can improve your own sea kayak if you only have a rudder attached and no skeg.

But why talk about this ? Is this really an issue ?

Short answer: Yes, if you want to optimize speed and lower resistance/drag

Background:
On may way though different FSK models that would fit me, I always seemed to find some details that didn't suit me perfectly. Take for example, the Tiderace Pace18.
It is a great kayak for long distance kayaking, ocean racing and also for daily excercise on water. I'd say, it's one of the best factory made FSKs on the market, but that's only my oppinion - others might be just as good.

I always like to optimize what I'm working with, and I found out that the flip rudder on the Pace18 was slowing me down, it makes more drag than you'd imagine - so I measured it with a sports watch, and I got proof of my suspection. So I couldn't get optimal speed out of the kayak when the flip rudder was in the water. If liftet up, I could easily gain 1-2-3 km/hour in speed depending on the water, but then I couldn't really steer and hold the course I intented to.

Testing with a surf finn glued on, I found that the speed was similar to no-rudder-in. I cound steer by leaning (on open water, not narrow rivers). But the glued on finn was fragile for snapping off, and not a good permanent solution for a sea kayak, landing on beaches etc

So: I was on to something here. The Pace18 does not come with a skeg, and many consider a FSK as a rudder-kayak only. Far from the truth, you can easily hold course and lean to adjust course with a skeg on the Pace18.

So, to improve the speed for racing and saving energy on long distance paddeling, I decided to build in a skeg, but not just any skeg you could buy standard, no no, I wanted a skeg with low resistance, and had a talk with the swedish kayak designer Björn Thomasson about the possibilities to prevent drag and turbulence when building in your own skeg in to a no-skeg kayak. BT is a wise man and his experience in ship construction helped making my decision to go on with the skeg project.

So, my research with the glued-on surf finn was good - and I found that kayak builder Nick Schade from the US actually had the same thoughts about optimizing the resistance of a skeg, and he has made drawings available for the perfect retractable skeg.

I visited the Guillemot Kayaks website, bought the plans and layed out a plan

https://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/catalog/accessory-plans/retractable-sea-kayak-skeg-plans

A sharp, strong, low weight, low resistance, retractable skeg was the solution. You can purchase his book with blueprint drawings and a 1-2-3 plan to construct the skeg yourself

The only problem was - im an not a handy man, i'm a sales man with computer fingers. But I dare to try, and looked at it in this way:

If I could get advise from fellow kayakers that are handy with building and tweaking, and if I could build the skeg and casing my self. Then only the build-in fase was left afterwards.

I got good advice from my friends in my local rowing club - advice about some of the processes of constructing and also for material choices. I did the construction work myself and that very satisfactory afterwards

Resizing for FSKs

I actually have 2 of these skegs: My first skeg of this kind went into one of Björn Thomassons designs, the strip built Panthera kayak. Thats another story.

This is my second kayak with this Guillemot skeg, and this time I enlarged the plans by 15%. I learned from the BT Panthera that a FSK waterline needs a bit larger skeg area to handle stronger side winds better.

Time needed

So to sum up, time spent - and remember im not that handy:

16-18 hours building the skeg

12-14 hours building the skeg-box

8 hours preparing the kayak cutting and drilling

4-5 hours mounting the skeg box

2-3 hours mouting the controller box

So i'd say - adding time for reading the plans, thinking out solutions - somewhere between 60-70 hours work for an office guy. Probably alot less if you're a handy man.

Dual wield

Keeping the rudder on the kayak, yes. Especially for narrow rivers etc, you would not be happy with only a skeg. Switching between rudder and skeg is easy, and gives you just one more detail for optimizing your kayak tours

Payout

Is it worth it ?

Certainly, if you also have Covid19 time to kill, then I couldn't find a better choice of project

Do you dare to cut up your beloved kayak ?

Well, I look at it this way: if you are in doubt, ask handy kayakers for advise, be passionate about the construction work and enjoy that you dared afterwards

You learn alot about the materials, and the process of completing this is half the enjoyment

You get a faster kayak, and a kayak paddeled with less energy - which especially good for long distance paddleling

You dont loose the rudder feature, you just add the skeg feature

If you dont dare to build your own skeg and box, you can purchase ready-made KayakSport parts and just cut up you boat - but to be honest, the parts you can buy are not optimized for speed and low resistance, so you wouldnt really get the result out of it, just the stearing capability of a skeg.

Materials

Skeg plans - maybe enlarge by 15%.

Plywood, 3mm

Carbon fiber

Epoxy 2 component glue

Epoxy resistant thin gloves

Tip: purchase a factory made controlller box instead of making one. Its way better looking with a KayakSport controller box than my abilities with small woodparts would ever get it.

Skeg wire - important: must be for both pull and drag.

Air vent snap clutch

Jiggsaw and drill

Thick plastic sheets for putting pressure on the parts with out the clamps getting stuck on the glue. Plastic does not stick on Epoxy glue.

Disclaimer

This blog is not influenced by any sources nor is it funded or supported by any company. It is solely intented to inspire fellow kayakers to get more out of our common hobby and passion.

If you find it useful, please put a like, and feel free to share it on any media.

Remember: this is not a religion war about skeg and rudder, kayak type or anything alike, so if you want to comments, please only constructive and positive comments.

You are welcome to ask questions, I will answer them if you email them directly at: norris9240@gmail.com

Just some photos from the process - let them speak for themselves :-)