Early Spring!

The air is lovely but the water is still a bone chilling 44 degrees.  That means serious cold water  immersion clothing like a wet suit or dry suit or some combo.  Still it is 2 degrees warmer than last week and the air is 10 degrees warmer! Come on Spring!

One way to keep the wind down is to bring a sail for testing.  I still had fun figuring out that this mounting position is not ideal for this sail.  And I figured out that I want foot controls for the rudder instead of hand controls like I use on a sailing canoe.

Please dress for the swim and wear your life vest.

Get a Cart!

I really like my C Tug Cart!  I wish I had been able to get one 15 years ago.  When it is easier to load your boat and gear, then you will paddle and enjoy it more often. The video below shows how to use a cart to help load a kayak onto a car!

Designing a sail rig for the Expedition.

As many know I recently obtained a very old Cobra Expedition.  I've been doing the calculations of the forces on the 1 meter sail in various wind conditions.  I think i'll design it to handle winds to 20 knots and gusts to about 30 knots.  When there are steady winds at 20 knots I expect I will take the sail down and paddle for shore, but it is good to be safe.

I'm working on a simple rig that will allow others to try kayak sailing.  All the parts are easy to find online and can be installed in an hour or less.  If you are good at sail making, you could make your sail and install your rig in one afternoon.

For the sail I've decided a lug rig is best. So it will be similar to this one:

But it will by mounted on this yellow boat:

Sea kayaking with SeaKayakPhoto.com: Sea kayak sailing for non sailors!

Sea kayaking with SeaKayakPhoto.com: Sea kayak sailing for non sailors!

Thanks FatPaddler.com

Thanks for the stickers Sean!  They are going to look great on my boats!

Friday night fun at the pool.

It's usually too cold to paddle so we go to the pool and practice.  I'm getting better at the heal hook rescue, but I cannot roll at all.  At least I can take video of a good roller:

Who is this?

A friend sent me these pictures and I really like this sail.  If you know anything about it I'd like to ask the owner all about it.