Tassie Wadefish

[neon14]

Thats a nice looking boat X2, heck of a build. I like your pad eyes, thinking I might try to make some for the paddle board.

Will

[PiratePete]

Thats a nice looking boat X2, heck of a build. I like your pad eyes, thinking I might try to make some for the paddle board.

Will

Thanks Will

I copied the pad eyes from Nick Schade's book The Strip Built Sea Kayak. Thats where I got the rudder plans from too.

I need to re design the rudder as because the Wadefish has such a low flat deck the when I pull on the rudder lift line I have to pull the rudder up over centre so it is very hard to pull.

[PiratePete]

Things on the second boat have slowed up now Im back at work but I have got all the top decks on & almost ready to glass.

[PiratePete]

Well its been a bit slow but the second Wadefish hit the water yesterday at Hawley on the North West Coast of Tasmania, Australia. This is the waterway they will both be spending a fair bit of time.



It still needs a bit of fitting out & the front hatch cutting in but the boat floats & my 16 year old loves her kayak.

Here is mine all done but I am going to make a new rudder for both of them as the lift rope needs to pull up over centre to raise rudder.



The other thing I need to do is make up a seat back for use when peddling as you lay back a fair bit to do it comfortably. Any ideas would be welcome.

[PiratePete]

Well after using the Wadefish a few times I have decided to move the rudder control. Its just too hard to use where I have mounted it as I have found that when using the Hobie Drive Im always correcting the steering to keep on a constant heading.

First off I cut out the original post & will put an access port to fill the hole.



Then I cut off the caps I made up for the rudder tubes to come up through the deck



Drilled a new hole on the right hand side where the hand sits more easily



New holes for the rudder tubes.



Plus I also cut out the front hatch and roughed out the timbers for it to sit on.



I still have to work out some thing for the seat & am still open to suggestions.

[jem]

I've started a new section of the forum discussing the build an installation of the drive well. Please jump in and contribute if you can.

viewforum.php?f=29

[CC TX]

I still have to work out some thing for the seat & am still open to suggestions.

Check out some of the hard plastic boat seats. I found one that fit me well for use with the Hobie Drive. Either mount it in your kayak or make your own using it as a form.

[craiggamesh]

David, I have a couple of those hard plastic seats. They work great on my Jon boat. Did you just layer the cloth on them and let the epoxy cure or did you vacuum bag it somehow? Also, did you use Kevlar or carbon fiber cloth? the weave looks pretty heavy.

Thanks.

[CC TX]

It is two layers of carbon fiber cloth, 10.9 oz, 5 HS weave, 12 x 12 thread count. It conformed very well to the seat. The yellow is dye I added to the epoxy fill. The blck shows through due to the coarse weave. I didn't have any vacuum bagging equipment. The two layers were applied wet on wet. I applied mold release to the seat; still had a little difficulty in separating it. Probably because I tried to seperate it before it fully hardened.

[PiratePete]

Thanks CC TX

I have been looking for a seat to do some thing similar.

I also think I can raise the seat up a bit higher as I seem to lay back more when peddling so the Centre of Balance is still low.