Seat Repair

A few months ago, I had to take the Gemini SP out of circulation because the backband broke.

More precisely, the part of the seat pan that one of the bolts attached to had sheared clean out. I mentioned this in my post about the Rendezvous event, but for various reasons I didn't finish the repair until January.

First I emailed Valley, and they suggested replacement. Honestly, I was angling for some sort of free or warranty repair, but that's not how the kayak world works. In any case, they're in the UK and I'm in the US, so I was directed to the nearest Valley dealer, Kayak Centre of Rhode Island. Matt Bosgraaf set me straight, and even sent along a pair of bolts later on, that I'd forgotten I'd need.

Some people have been unclear about what I mean about the "seat pan". There are several ways to mount a seat in a boat; the true enthusiasts will situate some carved foam, but I wasn't ready to do that. Basically it's a butt-shaped bucket.

Here's the replacement, upside down and backwards.

The Replacement.

I noticed some spider cracks on the right. Asking around on a sea kayaking forum, comments were generally split between "that's just a byproduct of the manufacturing process, don't worry" to "no that's terrible, send it back." I wrote Valley again with a picture, and they said, in effect, the former. By this point I hadn't paddled the Gemini for a couple of months, so I decided to install the seat.

Area of Concern.

Doing so would require some non-trivial effort. First I had to remove the old seat.

Look! A ball in my cockpit.

I started by removing the hip pads. These are held on with small straps, so that was easy. This is from the broken side, and you can see a hint of zip-tie poking out - but we'll get more into that later.

Hip Pad.

Next I had to remove the four screws that hold the seat in. Imagine the seat is a U, and it's an undersink mount, the top ends attached to the underside of the deck. Two small plats underneath act as sort of lateral washers.

I was nervous about doing this over floorboards with gaps over the open river, but also, it was cold, and I was determined. So, I was careful, cupping my hand under each thing that might drop.

One side detached.

The opposite side, still attached.

I did most of this with a cheap household repair kit. I need to get a better one - the bits don't stay in the driver! I tried using my Gerber but it wasn't comfortable, nor ratcheting.

Cheap ratcheting screwdriver.

Here, on the "good" or unbroken side, you can see how the backband normally attaches. Basically, a bolt with a washer goes through the strap and holds it fast to the sides of the seat pan.

This is what it is supposed to look like.

The backband also attaches to the middle of the seat pan, almost straight down range from the business end of your bum. This proved to be one of the more challenging things to remove, because an inch of foam is on the opposite side, and I couldn't do anything more than rotate the bolt until I removed the foam

Backband above, seat pad below.

The backband also secures via bungie through a small hole in the back of the coaming. It's held fast with a knot tied through a thing. I don't know what this thing is called.

Support for the backband.

With the backband no longer attached to the boat, I was able to slide the seat out. It took some doing - sliding it forward to a slightly wider part of the boat, then rotating. It weren't hard, but it weren't easy neither.

The seat pan removed.

Now that the old seat pan was fully removed, I could see the damage in full light. The round hole is supposed to be there. The square hole above it is not. From what I can tell, the entire square, approximately 1" by 1", popped at once, and shortly after, the fracture between that and the circle formed.

You can make out the black zip ties that I had used to keep the backband in place at the time, but these were only temporary. I found that they not only wore out quickly, but put more strain on what was left of the seat pan, since they didn't have a washer and bolt to distribute the load more evenly. Basically, the edge they looped around would saw away, and the zipties could put the load on the narrow edge they looped around. It was a mutually destructive relationship.

This is not what it is supposed to look like.

Last step: taking the bandband off the old seat.

With the seat removed, I could finally flip it over to get at that pesky bold holding the backband in. To do that, I had to remove this foam padding from the bottom.

This block of foam is all that's between the seat and the keel.

Not so hard once you can get to it!

This little nut attaches the backband to the lower part of the seat.

Now, "getting to it" meant I had access. I still had to use a small vice grip to hold the nut in place while I removed the bolt. At the time, it didn't occur to me that I'd have to take the foam off.

Foam bent back to access the nut.

At last, side by side comparison of the old and the new seat pans. Looks like a match!

Old and new. Maybe I should lease?

One minor thing I had to do: there are two small loops of rope tied on at the front; these made for good handles when I had to tug the old pan free. To transfer them, I undid a knot on each, and slid them through.

I noticed an intriguing aspect that I think made these much easier to re-tire the knots: beveled ends.

I appreciate engineering details.

Knowing that I'd have to have access to that nut again, I poked and widened a hole in the underseat's foam block before gluing it back on.

For a hole in the seat-bucket, Eliza.

All of the above is as far as I got on the first day. It was a cold day in December, and I needed to let the glue dry between the foam and the seat, before I could install the seat.

Between my work schedule, weather, and social obligations, it was a full two weeks before I went back to actually install the new seat.

When I went back, I pulled the boat out to the deck in the club's garden, so I wouldn't be over water, and laid out the bits I needed to re-install.

Backband bolts in the Sephora case, side mounts below.

I like to organize my materials before I start. Off-camera, my boxes of tools on a ledge.

It looks more refined without the fittings for a human.

One concern is, I'm still using the old backband, which means I've got the strap that chafed against the zipties for a couple of days. I ended up folding some gorilla tape over the end, before re-attaching to the seat pan.

Hmmmmm........

Now, unfortunately, low temperatures seem to have put my phone into a coma, so I don't have more pictures. However, installing the new seat was fairly straightforward, mostly a reverse of the removal. I do have a one more tip to share, though.

Lining up and bolting the side mounts was really tricky. About three photos up, you see a pair of metal plates with bolts through them; those bolts go down just to the side of the coaming, holding the seat's sides against the interior of the deck. Those plates help distribute the load.

The hard part is holding those plates up while also holding a nut in place while driving the bolt in from above. It's a tough angle, and I couldn't reach my arm in - just my fingers through the circular hole in the side. This is all out of sight, because of the seat pan.

Eventually, I devised a method of using a piece of tape folded back on itself to stick the plate onto two of my fingers while the other two held the bolt just long enough for the bolt to get some bite.


I'm happy to say that the replacement seems to have gone well. I've had that boat in the pool a couple of times since, and also on a 7nm journey in the lower harbor of NYC to check out some seals. Time will tell, but I think this is one repair I can check off as well done.

Care and Maintenance

It's winter time, so guess what time it is for kayakers?

What time is it, Cowgirl?

While I'd normally say time for winter paddling, which I have done and will continue to do, it's also time for repairs. Inspecting your boat and taking care of any little things going on with it.

Today I pulled the Gemini SP off the rack to take a closer look at some things that have been bothering me for a few months.

I had three goals: clean the skeg, protect the hatch covers, and inspect the remaining mechanicals and lines on the boat.

First, the skeg.

Tools at the ready.

I've taken apart the Argonaut's skeg before, and while the control box is different on the Gemini, the overall approach is the same. Since then, I've bought tools that are useful for these kinds of repairs, including both metric and imperial folding Allen wrenches, and a small set of vice grips, which I keep in a little tin I got from and international flight on Turkish Airlines.

The problem I've been having is that I couldn't deploy the skeg, yet on land I could pull it free by hand easily, and work it up and down. After some earlier checking, I determined that is was likely sand in the tube. That was my theory, anyway.

Note paper placed below to prevent screws from dropping through cracks.

Here you can see the controller. Basically, the steel cable that controls the skeg itself feeds up through plastic conduit inside the boat until it gets to the controller. The slidy-box thing with the five screws is just a housing - a thing for the control rod to to move through.

That rod extends to the right of the housing, and is in fact a hollow tube that the cable feeds through. The handle at the far left in this photo has a small screw inside that tightens down on the end of the cable, through a hole in that rod. Basically, the handle pinches the end of the cable, and everything else just keeps the cable straight as it comes into and out of the conduit.

All the skeg controller screws are Allen head.

Blurry - basically the housing detached, rod still in place.

Rod with the handle removed. See the hole for a screw to pinch the cable? 

Once I had the handle off, I noticed corrosion on the end of the cable. Not a whole lot, but definitely rusty red. I also found, and cleaned out, sand between the hull and the housing.

Satisfied with my dismantling of the slider hosing, I checked the cable on the skeg itself. To my surprise, there was nearly no corrosion here. While you can't see it in the photo below, it looked at first like there was no kink, but I found a slight bend further up when I hyper-extended the skeg.

I spent a lot of time working the cable up and down. I also splashed some water on it, hoping it would work its way down the tube. However, I was becoming convinced that there wasn't so much sand in the conduit itself.

The skeg end of the cable.

My original plan was to pull the cable completely out, and then to flush water through, and wipe down the cable. But, as I worked things along, the cable seemed fine to a point, and I was a little worried I'd have trouble threading the cable through if I got it all the way out. It's not hard, but it requires more time and finesse than I had at hand.

I also noticed a slight kink in the cable near the skeg end. It's not noticeable in the photo above, but when I hyper-extended the skeg, I could make it out. I've seen worse. As I continued working the cable back and forth, I found that it was pretty smooth, except for pulling the skeg up an additional quarter-inch to be flush with the keel of the boat.

That much, I can live with. I'll replace the cable eventually, but for now, I've got it working better than it was. I can pull it flush for storage, and when I go to see, just give it a little pull to get it in position to be deployable when needed.

I removed the controller housing completely and ran water through it, then a twisted-up paper towel, to get any grime and sand out. I did the same with the control rod as well, even though nothing is supposed to be moving internally in it.

I put the entire assembly back together and tested it out, then moved on to some other things.

For one, I rinsed my hatch covers and then dried them off, then applied 303 protectant to them. I'd removed the hatched from the lines I used to tether them as well, so that I could wipe 303 into the rims. The 303 spray shields hatch covers from the sun's ultraviolet rays, which can degrade the material. Even though I store my boat in a boathouse, well-shielded from the sun, it's a wise protective move given how frequently I paddle.

I inspected all my deck lines and bungies. They're all in good shape, though I can see the start of some thread fraying on one stretch of bungie. Surprise, it's the area I use the most, to secure my water bottle, or pump, or camera.

The last thing I checked (other than the seat, which was fine, just fine) was the pair of foot pegs. The right peg was fine. The left, not so much.

I couldn't open the cleat that keeps it secure. I use my vice grips to finally get them open, but even after that, the peg would not slide along the track. I got out a hammer and tapped it forward, but even that didn't budge it much.

Finally, I resorted to removing it from my boat, but removing the two screws that pierce the hull and attached to the rails. Once out, I was able to rinse and remove the peg. I made sure to get all the sand and grime off, and got the foot peg to slide again.

Problem parts, taken apart !

One note about re-assembling the foot peg and track: you need to put the peg on before re-attaching the rail to the boat. Once the screws are in, they block the peg from sliding on (or off) the rail. Minor thing that I had to figure out.

I wiped out some sand left in my boat, and rinsed along the bulkhead seams. The last thing I want is for some sand and water to freeze in a crack and expand later.

I'm sure I'll paddle my boat some more in the winter, but I was happy with this little inspection and repair. I've got one last thing to follow up on later (the skeg cable) but other wise the Gemini SP is in good shape!

Now I'll just have to make time for its bigger and older sibling, the Argonaut. . .