Wednesday, October 5, 2011

New Wheels for Kayak

It has been over 3 years since I got out the P&H Sea Kayak, the last time was my 4 day journey from Kippford to Gamelsby (Scotland to England). Then I bought my Hurley Felicity and I have been sailing and redesigning her rig (documented in this blog). But now I am turning my thoughts to sea kayaking once more. Partly to do with keeping fit and partly to do with transportation. I wish to see other shores that the Solway Coast and I am not getting out far enough with the Hurley due to our strong winds that we have had for the past few years. Also another factor is I added a sailing rig to my inflatable kayak and this worked fine so I am now thinking to add one to my Capella sea kayak and explore the coast line closer. In a few weeks I will be taking down the mast on the Hurley and mooring her for the winter so the Capella will be in use once more. Since I can transport the 16ft sea kayak by bike I have been making a new frame for her and I got hold of a good set of wheels which turn well due to ball bearings in the axle. This will make it alot easier to transport by bike to the coast. I got the whole frame today and I have been thinking what bits to cut off and what to keep. i think i will take most of it off and keep only the back axle and turn some wood so it can be slotted into the axle base. From this I can add bits to support the hull of the kayak.
The problem with the frame was the height and the weight, it was too high off the ground and able to tip over in high winds, also the whole weight was too much to store.