I salute your creativity! Of course, no doubt, there will be version, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 etc. Great to see people using brainpower, and having fun with it. As an ex Pro sailor, I once again salute you, sir. Great job!
Uberfy -- Outstanding design on your rudder and sail rig! I built a sail rig for an inexpensive Sevylor Tahaiti inflatable kayak that worked reasonably well but I added dagger boards. I could adjust the dagger boards to various postions using stainless clevis pins through the 1 1/4" PVC and through the 1 " PVC arms attached to the dagger boards. In real sailboats you want your dagger board or center board up when sailing downwind, in the middle position for crosswinds and all the way down when sailing close hauled into the wind. The 1 1/4 PVC pipe ran the width of the boat to serve as receivers for the dagger board arms of 1" PVC. I made outriggers out of two large swimming Noodles I bought at the dollar store for $1 each. They were about 4' long. The center hole was perfect for 1" PVC. I cut the Noodles to 3' and tapered the ends forward and aft then cut a section out of the center which allowed me to install two pieces of 1" PVC with a tee in the middle. I glued the noodles to the PVC then glued the Noodle section I had cut out back in place after cutting a hole in the foam by hand with a 1" inch circle cutter. I glued a 6" piece of PVC into each tee then added an elbow on the other end. I then glued a 4' section of 1" PVC to the elbow. I used a 1 1/4" piece of PVC as a receiver like I did with the paddle boards then slid the outrigger arms into the receivers about 14 inches or half the width of my kayak. The outriggers are held in place with clevis pins and I can adjust their length to extend them an additional 7 inches by sliding them out. After a couple of sails, I reduced the length of the outrigger arms to 3 feet to give me a little more heel when under sail. All of this stuff is attached to a PVC frame which also is used as a mast step and rigging support. It has all worked well. In fact, the only thing that did not work well was the sail rig, itself. I gave up on building an effective sail rig out of PVC and eventually bought an aluminum rig from Sailboats-to-Go and it has worked extremely well. I found the PVC rig, even when reinforced, was too flexible to be efficient. The biggest problem I have now is that the natural flexibility of the inflatable boat causes the boat itself to twist in any wind above 7-8 mph. Up to that speed, it works really well and is quite fast. I do use an oar for a rudder because there's is no way to attach a permanent rudder. It's also attached to a PVC frame held to the boat by belts. Don't know how far along you are with your plans for outriggers and some sort of dagger board arrangement but you'll find your sailing more exciting and safer once you get them done. Good luck!!!
For sailing across wind (reaching), you do need some sort of a board in the water to prevent the boat from just being blown sideways across the water. Usually a deep keel, swing keel, or dagger board is used. For your kayak, I'd look into making leeboards. A swing up/down board on each side of the hull, putting the downwind side board down into the water. Used for centuries on sailing craft, and may be easier to construct on a plastic kayak. Google leeboards and check it out. Happy Yaking.
thank you for a great video..before i made my own rudder i end up hitting the dock so many time when trying to turn :) thanks so much for sharing your great ideas.
_'Sailing'_ on day with no _Wind,_ looks familiar. haha Nice Design. Seems Kayak engineered with more than Paddling in mind. Perhaps rudder extension with Pin to Pivot up upon hitting shore. ? *Cheers!*
@AlphaInfernoAttack I think technically rudders are to help keep your boat going straight. I use mine to correct my oversteering due to paddling too hard on one side or the other. When I am using my sail, I can use the rudder to steer so I don't have to use my paddle at all.
Judging by the fact that pushing your right foot to turn right felt unnatural, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you've never used a regular rudder setup before. I wonder if you should try one to see if you get any ideas from it? But either way, I thoroughly salute your deep spirit of customization and creative engineering. Downright inspirational.
Thank you very much for sharing your rudder idea, but I am more interested in using your steering ideas. I'm trying to fabricate something now. My kayak has footrests and I'm considering modifying them to steer with.,
you should add a spring to the cross bar in the front to keep your rudder straight when not in use. if you drilled a hole on the top of each elbow and put an eye bolt through it, and the put an eye bolt on the back sides of the bar and put a spring in between there, would work perty goood.
Btw that groove in the back isn't for a rope to pass through for the anchor, its for a $200-$300 rudder to fold up into that you and me don't want to buy. xD Anchor trollies on the side all the way bro.
No, I'll definitely need to add a daggerboard to be able to tack upwind. That's my next DIY project. The lake where I go most often is only about 1 foot deep in most places, so using a daggerboard there would be difficult.
nice vid, but like other postings, i do have to ask you....can it tack upwind? i dont see a daggerboard. it seems that you made some serious effort to make this perform like a sailboat. tacking upwind is a big deal for me.
I don't get the bit about the rudder controls I have a Mirage 583, before that a Profisher525 and a Malibou x-13 and they all turned to the same side as your foot control. You need to have your Rudder at 6/8 inch below the waterline then the Paddle doesn't get used to steer at all .
or well then im not trying to nag or anything just saying it for saftey because not long ago when i was kayaking i wasnt wearing one and normally i can swim fine but the cold water shocked me and my mind just went blank and i started to panic and i coudnt get back to shore but if the water wasnt that deep it dosent really matter but thanks for replying to my comment anyway
No, I'll definitely need to add a daggerboard to be able to tack upwind. That's my next DIY project. The lake where I go most often is only about 1 foot deep in most places, so using a daggerboard there would be difficult.
