Pace 18 Rudder Repair

A few months ago I bought a used Tiderace Pace 18, model year 2012. It's a brilliant boat - though long, it edges well, and I hardly ever need the rudder, but it's been nice to have when I do need it.

Unfortunately, while the boat and mechanicals are in overall great shape, after a couple months of use, I found myself unable to retract the rudder from the cockpit. This had been working just fine, and is normally done by pulling on a rope with a toggle on it.

A jam cleat holds the rope in place when the rudder is up, and gravity takes care of deploying it when I need it down. To bring it up, I just pull the rope, and the SmartTrack rudder system comes right up. Everything was fine, until it wasn't.

It took a couple of examinations to determine the problem, and ultimately it's easier to show before I try to explain.

This is what a good rudder assembly is supposed to look like. Note the arched piece at the top.

Good Rudder.

This is what mine looked like. In fact, you can't see from this angle, but it looked more like two offset half-arches. In this photo, you can make out a white fracture line where the plastic was already starting to bend.

Bad Rudder.

Before we get into the assembly/disassembly process though, there was a minor detour in getting the right part. Essentially, you can't buy just that little arched piece. You don't have to buy an entire ne rudder kit (nearly $200), but you do have to by the control sub-assembly.

When I first ordered it, I said it was a Tiderace Pace with a SmartTrack rudder system. My friendly regional kayak parts supplier  (Tom) sent me a replacement - and only after taking it apart did I notice that the Pace uses a "compact" sub-assembly, and by default I'd gotten the "original". 

They're kind enough to print it right on the tin, so to speak.

Compact vs. Original

I thought I might make it work, but even the mounting bracket is a different size - off just enough that you can't mix and match.

Thankfully, Tom was able to find the correct part and send it to me. We managed to overlap each other's efforts to - at one point I wrote SmartTrack asking about the right part, and had some correspondence that went something like this (I'm paraphrasing).

Kayak Cowgirl: Hey there, I'm looking for the correct rudder assembly a 2012 Tiderace Pace 18. I asked my friendly region kayak parts guy to help me out, but thought I'd ask around as well.

SmartTrack: Oh yeah, Tom contacted us already and we shipped it to him. 

Sure enough, the right part arrived a day or two later, not to mention an earlier email from Tom.

I'd been dreading taking this apart, because the mechanical complexity of rudders kinda scares me. However, replacing the part pretty easy. First, since I'd taken it apart previously, when I had the wrong part, I already knew what to do. Second, even that first time, since the control cables and pedals were fine, all I really had to do was detach the control cables from the sub-assembly, and change the foil from one to the other.

The cables are kept on with a simple pin and cotter pin arrangement. The pin goes through the wings of the sub-assembly and a round attach point on the cable, and the cotter pin holds it in place.

Controls Assembled.

To take them apart, you have to carefully (very carefully, if you're working over a plank-decked floor directly over water) take the cotter pin off like a key ring, then pull the pin loose.

Once you do that, removing the sub-assembly is as easy as pulling out the long vertical pin, which you can make out in the first pictures.

I also had to move the foil - my only replacement part was the sub-assembly that the rudder foil sits in. That was pretty easy. Another, larger cotter pin holds in place an adjustment knob that fastens on the opposite side, sandwiching the arm of the sub-assembly.

It's pretty neat. It turns out the spring is adjustable. With the adjustment knob on, you can tighten the coiled spring pictured below, to add a little pop to your deployment.

Ultimately, the hardest part of this whole process was threading the deployment cord through the new part. You can see above that the end of the cord gets tucked in a hole, tied off in a wee knot. To thread it, I had to undo the knot, and that took some pliers and an f-tonne of patience. I have a marlinspike knife, but doubt even that could have gotten in to such a tiny knot.

Annnnnnd . .. that was that. Once I threaded the deployment cord, I tied a new knot and threaded it into the foil. The blad was mounted, the sub-assembly was mounted, I put back the control pins, and tested a couple of deploy/retracts from the cockpit. Perfect. Like butter.

I can't want to paddle the Pace again. I've been favoring the Gemini, which is better for teaching, but I've got some journeys planned that will definitely be Pace-perfect.

Drysuit Repair

A friend of mine bought a used drysuit last year, and despite having the latex gaskets replaced by the manufacturer, discovered in some recent pool sessions that it leaks. I offered to take a look at it while he's on vacation; here is what I've found.

The first trick was to find the leaks. The gaskets seemed fine, but throughout the drysuit, most of the sealing under the seam tape was dried and flaking away.

cc

In an early attempt, I sealed the gaskets for bag clips, and then inflated it using a SUP air pump.

World's Funnest Inflatable Humanoid.

I then wrestled it - which must have looked really interesting to any onlookers - compressing first the legs, then the body - listening and pressing my face up in places where I thought air was escaping. The legs seemed fine, but the body was leaking air. However, I couldn't determine exactly where it was escaping from.

I took it home and hung it in the shower, partially filling the drysuit with water and then letting it hang in different positions to see what leaked. This was an improvement, but still inexact. I couldn't see anything dripping from the legs, but clearly water was escaping along the chest zipper. It came down along the relief zipper as well, but not as much. However, it would run down the edge of the fabric and drip like a stalactite, so I wasn't sure where along the zipper it was leaking.

Filled to the ankles.

The next test helped me narrow down the leaks. Following advice from a friend, I smeared liquid soap all over the zippers and their seams. I then inflated it - with deep chest breaths, no pump, because I didn't have one with me - and then squeezed the body much as I had before.

I have to say, by this point my technique in compressing the drysuit to check different areas of its surface was much refined.

Lo and behold, little bubbles of soap appeared, in varying sizes, along the chest.

So, clearly not the zipper itself, but the seams around it.

If you look on the other side, you can see where there's just not much backing up the stitching.

The next step is to see if there is a good way to re-seal that seam. I'm guessing AquaSeal, or something similar, but I want to take time to consider how best to make it a continuous, singular spread. I don't want any gaps in coverage.

Gelcoat Repair

Over a year later, I finally got on some gelcoat work for my boat.

The background is that last year, my boat took a couple of bonks on the nose, cracking the gelcoat. I had a local shop put some fiberglass bandages on it, and those have held well. I shouldn't have to do anything more, but it's a cosmetic issue that's been bugging me.


Here is what it looked like before.

With a similar, but longer would up front, which I'll get to in a bit.

I started by masking the area off, with masking tape and then blue painter's tape.

After cleaning the area with acetone (formerly classified as a neurotoxin, according to one friend), I started sanding away with 220 grit sandpaper - a tad shy of the 300 someone had recommended.

Eventually I got it mostly smoothed out.

I would end up doing the same for the bow wounds - similar, but a little more awkward given their proximity to the front hatch (which, I should add, has been bone dry this whole time). I also had to unfasten the deck line grommets.

I filed that down as well. then I got to the gel coat part.

Here is where I was very fortunate, and my patience paid off. I had actually contacted the manufacturer of my boat, Valley Sea Kayak, about matching the color. Valle is based in the UK, and there are regulations against shipping gelcoat by mail or in luggage. However, the pigment is OK. As it happened, I had a friend living in Scotland last year, and I was able to get a sample of the gel pigment shipped to her for free - and she brought it back in her luggage!

This is a major win. If you research gel coat repair at all, color matching is the hard part. People will mix different proportions of standard colors to get just the right shade of yellow, or red, or even "off white" as can be had. Here I had the same pigment used by the manufacturer to color my boat. The only concern I would have would be the saturation of the color.

My mixing tools: gel coat, pigment,, utensils.

I won't go into the details of gel repair - there are better videos and articles than I have time to write. Suffice it to say, I had clear gel that I mixed with pigment. Once satisfied with the amount and color, I added hardener and applied using a brush.

If I ever do this again, I will use foam brushes, not hair brushes. I found myself picking hairs out of the applied gel, and then having to smooth that out.

Once applied, I taped plastic warp over it. I ought to have done a better job smoothing it out: the gel hardens in the form it takes.I'll have a lot of sanding to do.

So the next day I came back after the gel had cured. I am mostly pleased with the results. The blue is a bit stronger than the rest of my boat, but at this point I think that may just be because the rest of the boat has over twelve years of weather (and a recent muddy trip to Piermont Marsh).

With the masking removed, the patched areas look pretty good.

  

I spent an hour or so sanding, now with finer grain paper - 400 and 600. I think it will take quite a bit more work, and I'm considering buying or borrowing an orbital to get it sorted. I'll post more pictures when it's done, but for now, I'm reasonably pleased with the results.

Winter Skeg Repair

Last summer, and again in the fall, I replace a kinked skeg cable on my own boat, a VCP Argonaut. While there was a fair amount of detail, once I learned the basic mechanism of a skeg, it was very straightforward: loosen two screws, essentially, and pull the bad cable; put in the new cable, trim to fit, and then tighten the screws. Voila, repair complete.

Thus, under the rubric of, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing", I offered to repair the skeg cable on one of my club's older boats, a plastic WS Tempest 170. What could go wrong?

Lots.

I thought it would be helpful to write up details of that repair, for my own review as well as an informational to others (whether a warning, or a guide, actual mileage may vary). I also feel like I owe an explanation to some of my fellow clubmates, on why something so simple dragged on for months.  While in retrospect, it was ultimately a simple repair, the entire effort was confounded by weather, mistakes, and some additional components that required repair.

Additionally, In my day job, I work as a systems engineer, and when something goes wrong, we always review and document what went wrong in order to learn from it: how the problem can be prevented, and more quickly resolved, in the future. I and those who assisted me learned a lot from this repair, and hopefully, the complexity we encountered here won't deter us from future attempts at reviving our fleet.

Where possible, I've added photos and video.

I also want to put in a few good words about Tom Holtey at Tom's Top Kayaker Shop in New Hampshire. I first found Tom's shop when I needed to replace the day hatch cover on my VCP Argonaut, and I turned to him again for my own skeg cable repair (and again, when I kinked it by sliding the control knob against a support beam while pulling the boat out). Tom was a great help in researching some of the more picayune details of this repair, and easy to work with when I needed to return a part and order another. I got nothing but fair and square dealings from him, and recommend him for advice and guidance on kayak repairs.

The Issue:
Skeg cannot be lowered using the control mechanism. The skeg can be forcefully pulled down about three-quarters of the way, and can be pulled up to the one-quarter mark using the control mechanism, but otherwise is not functional.

Initial Assessment:
Assessment occurred in two phases, as more elaborate disassembly was required to ascertain the secondary issue. The primary issue was that the skeg cable was kinked near the rear, a common issue for skegs that occurs when the weight of the boat rests on a deployed skeg, i.e. someone forgot to retract it before pulling it out of the water. The secondary issue was that the sliding control rod, which is where the front of the cable goes, was slightly bent, and not moving straight; hence, even with a good cable, full control could not be restored until the rode was replaced.

Proposed resolution:
Replace the cable and the control rod.

For reference, here is a video of how to repair should go. The skeg blade in the video is the kind that we were dealing with - a detail that would become important later.

Aso for reference, here is a picture of how I dis-assembled the control mechanism on my own boat. I find this part to be the most difficult to explain to people. The only key difference is that the Tempest used a larger Phillips-head screw instead of a hex screw.

In the picture above, I've loosened the control knob to slide it over. You can see the skeg cable inside the control rode, through the hole between the two black markings where I had pre-marked the edges of where the knob should return to. In operation, the knob sits between those two marks, and the screw presses down on the cable, securing it. When you move the knob, the control rode and cable move with it. The knob does not slide along the tube.

Obstacle 01: Severely corroded cable and attach points hinder removal of the cable.
The first part was: there was a lot of corrosion on every metal piece involved. Detaching the cable from the blade itself was easy enough, but loosening the screw that holds the control knob fast was very difficult. Removing the cap at the fore of the cable tube was difficult, and was only made possible by later removing the entire assembly - which was also a chore. The control rod was slightly bent, hampering removal, and the cable itself could not be detached from the rod. Ultimately, I pulled the cable through the rear part of the way, cut the conduit, and then pulled it forward. That was easier than trying to get the rod through the fore or the aft. I would also end up replacing the set screw months later, when I realized it too was too corroded to be useful.

Here is a picture of the control rod, slightly bent. This was going to have to be replaced. I never did get it to detach from the cable, even after completely removing it.

For example of corroded metal, here is the aft end of the conduit. Simply disconnecting it was a huge challenge because the nut that held it in place was rusted together with the bolt, and at an odd angle to work with. This is actually one of the prettier-looking components.

Obstacle 02: Incorrect cable ordered.
This was an easy mistake. The cable repair kit is listed as a single kit, but on the order page, there are different SKUs for different model boats. If no selection is made, the first option - for a WS Tempest 165 - is entered. When I ordered, my eyes went to 'add to cart' first, and thinking there was one kit for all, I got the default kit. I wouldn't figure this out till I got stuck deciphering the instructions.

Here is a picture of our skeg. In the background, you can see the picture from the instructions.

On our skeg, the bottom edge of the blade is here on the left, and the top is on the right. The cable comes in from the top of the blade into the empty square, where the "set screw" sits (see below). The kit that I ordered was for a newer model Tempest, where 1) the cable comes in at the middle of the top edge, and 2) is held in place by a swage integrated with the cable, rather than a set screw.

Obstacle 03: Mismatch between skeg demonstrated in instruction set and actual skeg.
I didn't just order the wrong size (Tempest 165 instead of Tempest 170) - I ordered the "Premium Skeg Repair Kit", which is only for WS models from 2010 and later. The main difference is that the newer cables have an integrated cable swage (a block that holds the cable fast to the skeg). On the older models, they use what's called a "Cable Attachment Fixture with Set Screw", where instead of an integrated swage, the cable fits into a small brass block that has a 1/16' allen screw inside. I tried to make the cable work by snipping the swage and running it into the older brass set screw, but ultimately 1) the set screw needed to be replaced anyway and 2) the cable was too short because I had the wrong size.

Obstacle 04: Severely corroded cable set screw needed to be replaced.
This refers to the set screw described above. I was able to twist the old cable out of it, allowing me to remove the set screw. However, after some more close-up testing, it was clear the screw wouldn't tighten. It's hard to tell exactly what's wrong because it's an internal mechanism, but in and case, it wasn't going to hold the cable tight.

Here is the set screw, in place. You can see the cable coming down and entering the blade. The set screw faces after (the the right in the photo). However, we had to replace it as well.

Obstacle 05: Lost time attempting to fit cable and conduit to the incorrect part.
A lot of this experience was a learning process. I watched the videos, set aside tools, and the ran into, "hmm, it isn't going like it should". In some cases, this was due to screws and other fasteners that haven't been touched since the boat was built. In other cases, it was because of the wrong parts, or flat-out broken parts described above. I figure at least twelve to fifteen hours of effort were spent just trying to figure out what the heck was going wrong - and working just a couple of hours per weekend, with a wait of a week or so to get the next step figured out, that adds up to at least 4-6 weeks of lost time.

Obstacle 06: Lost time due to Hurricane Sandy, illness, and lost keys.
Similar to above, there were a few weekends where we didn't have access due in part to Sandy, and even when we did have access, there were a few weekends where everyone in our club was pitching in to clean up and then repair our facilities. I also caught a really bad cold that killed about two weekends in a row for me in February, and later, lost a set of keys that meant I had to coordinate access for a week or two while I got them replaced. That was probably the most frustrating period for me - the end was in sight, but all I all I could do was drink cough syrup and wait for keys. More than anything else though, working on this over the span of weeks rather than days meant having to get re-acquainted every time I came back to it.

Resolution:
Ultimately, I replaced the cable, cable conduit, control rod, and set screw. In so doing, I dismantled these components and also the fore tube where the rode slides into in the Up position. These efforts were hampered by corroded components, a bent control rod, irregular working conditions, and illness. However, once completed, the skeg is functional, fully capable of being extended and retracted fully from the cockpit.

Successful Repair Steps:
Ultimately, here's what happened, and which would have gone more smoothly given 20/20 hindsight (or is that foresight).

Remove the cable by detaching from skeg and disassembling forward tube at the start.
Order the  "Cable Attachment Fixture with Set Screw" for WS Tempest 170.
Order the replacement cable control rod.
Thread the cable from the after and control rod through the fore, and measure to fit.
Test mechanism and trim cable.
Attach set screw and control knob.

Shop

Today I paddled from Pier 96 down to Pier 40 - that's about 56th street to Houston street on the Hudson river. I got a line on a guy at New York Kayak Company who might be able to mend a bonk on the nose that the Argonaut suffered a few months ago, and today I was finally able to connect my schedule to his.

Weather was alright - in fact Saturday turned out to be a pretty amazing day, considering it's October, and the weather earlier and later in the week has not nor is it predicted to be terribly charming. Water temperature is still in the high sixties, as is the air. I let early in order to get good current south, though a steady breeze encouraged me to put on my paddling jacket.

Normally, paddling south out of the embayment at Pier 96 requires heading out a bit into the channel, due to a 100 yard security zone behind the cruise ship terminals just below 96. While I was heading out there anyway, I saw an NYPD boat and what I thought was and FDNY boat. Now, I knew there were some events in the harbor this week, but I had only vague ideas of what they were. I wasn't surprised to see these guys, but I wasn't sure what exactly they were there for.

well, one of the boats came closer, and turned out to be a USCG boat. I Sometimes they just buzz by, but these guys were coming to me, so I signalled I was stopping, and then maneuvered to stay steady in the water.

"Where are you heading," asked the nice, young, well-armed man.

"Pier 40," I said.

He explained there was a 500 yard security zone at Pier 80, due to a Navy vessel berthed there. Now I remembered something about some US Navy ship coming to NYC, but I guess I'd thought it was going to stay in the harbor.

Now, the cowgirl has some acquaintances who bristle at authority, even well-armed authority, telling them what to do, and the cowgirl has some other acquaintances to whom large calibre automatic firearms are moderately intimidating. However, having grown up military, the cowgirl knows these guys are just doing their job, and bears no grudge. She learned a long time ago how to talk to soldiers on guard duty.

After figuring our where Pier 40 was ("Houston Street!" I hollered), they said they'd let me through but would shadow me. Fine. I figure they were a little bored, early in the morning, no one on the water except some chick in an eighteen foot kayak. Once we were at the end of the security zone, they signalled and I paddled on my way.

Shortly after that, I approached a ferry terminal near 38th street (I think). There was a ferry backing out. I came to a stop and raised my paddle. He did a weird three point turn, saw me, and headed out. I caught some pretty amazing surf off his wake, but just a couple of decent waves.

Making my way down, I passed Pier 66, home of Manhattan Kayak Company, New York Kayak Polo, and New York Outrigger. It's next door to the Frying Pan restaurant, a great place for a burger along with a nice view of the river.

By then, the blowers for the Holland tunnel were in sight, just below Pier 40. Pier 40 itself is a large building, so large that it tends to blend in as part of the shoreline - until you realize how far out from the waterfront it sticks.

It took about forty-five minutes to travel 56 blocks - not accounting for the extra time spent talking to the Coast Guard. I was early, but I saw the Downtown Boathouse's Houston Street program getting started. I pulled in and talked to the guys. A gust of weird blew a sun umbrella clean off its post, landing in the water upside down. Took some doing, but one of the guys managed to wrangle it back in using a sit-on-top kayak and some interesting paddling techniques.

A little while later I met up with the guy at NYKC. Good news is, he said it didn't look nearly as bad as my photos made it look, and he gave me several options, including one quite a bit cheap than what I'd been expecting. That repair will be a whole 'nother story. Once we settled on a deal, I looked around the shop and tried on some drysuits - also a different story - and went on my merry way.

Part two will come later this week after I pick up my boat. Stay tuned.