My Hobie Revolution 11 Kayak has a hole made to receive a sail kit. As I couldn't yet find a second hand sail kit nearby, I decided to play a little bit and build one myself. So I took a piece of nylon fabric from an old curtain and using my child's chalk, I started to draw on the fabric.
I then cut as straight as I could (ie. not straight at all) at about one inch outside of the chalk mark to allow folding and sewing to strengthen the edges.
I thought my first cut was too wide so I did a second cut to reduce the width but I think that was a mistake and I should only do the second cut after testing it on the kayak.
After some work on the sewing machine, I took two pieces of 15mm PVC pipes and join them together to make the mast. I used the tip of a broken kid fishing rod to make the batten.
It's now time to put it on the kayak and see how it looks like. With the help of my high tech wind machine aka fan, I checked if the sail is balanced. Not too bad for a first attempt 😆
It has a small surface area so I'm not sure of efficient it will be, probably won't work on low wind day but at least I won't have to worry about capsizing without outriggers.
Next step will be to build a single outrigger made of wood, I already have a branch taken from my neighbour's tree. It already have a good shape, all I need to do is remove the bark and cut it to size. Once the outrigger done, I will try to build a larger sail.
Anyway, if weather allows, I will take this for a test on the water tomorrow.
Previously on my blog:
- I’m Steemit’s Most Valuable Programmer of the week!
- Catching my first legal Australian snapper offshore
- Wu Xing Dao Kung Fu - Qigong & Photoshoot in Terrigal NSW
- Wu Xing Dao Internal Kung Fu - Adult Classes Photoshoot
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