Keelguard and the like

This sounds strange, but the wenonah keel strip/repair kit that we sell that is glass cloth & epoxy, is recommended for poly boats as well, and we've installed at least one that didn't come back the next day because it fell off or anything.

Fairly expensive at $70 or $80, but it's got everything you need to install.

The boats we rubbed holes in the stern on we plastic welded, and that's really the way to go for poly repair, but doesn't give you any protection from future damage.

I wouldn't do steel or metal as it will probably throw off the trim/handling of the boat.

That being said on a SOT piggy it may be only a slight deviation in performance.

I launch on rocks 90% of the time. I've been thinking about wear and tear on the keel.

i can't help but wonder if a single layer of fiberglass wouldn't be useful in those easy-to-abuse places.  After the Anderson Island trip this last weekend, my nearly pristine yak looks like a feral dog...

I noticed this when I was loading mine on the truck this last weekend. I put my little homemade cart under the back end to keep it off the ground while I lifted the front onto the canopy and then onto the rack. It still drags slightly, a strip of carpeting would work well.

After blasting my back a few times this year I've been loading the yak bow first ,w/ the stern on the ground, and then pushing it up onto the racks. I put a doormat on the edge of the roof and also one under the stern where it'll rub on the ground. No damage and no alterations to the yak!

Z

If your car/truck has floor mats, use these for ground contact points. 

If anyone has the kind of memory I have at my age, you will be less one floormat as you drive off into the sunset. holt

If anyone has the kind of memory I have at my age, you will be less one floormat as you drive off into the sunset. holt

Easy fix, put your car keys on the floor mat, too.   

Here are the pictures of my skeg I took aftercoming home from the Pinkout.  In the first pic the yak is at a 45* angle (the amount of water is at the blue line).  Water drips from the hole at ~30 drops/min.  The second pic shows the worn section head on.  I think there may have been an air bubble in my skeg that resulted in the indentation deeper than the worn section.  Time to plasti-weld the hole and come up with some sort of wear shield.

Damn, that is gnarly! I though my yaks looked like hell after the John Day trip, but that just looks bad!

I don't mind scratches and scrapes... they add character.  It's the holes that make my ___ clinch.

I had another thought about how to fix this:  Cut out the 4" hatch hole in the tank well and use a couple plastic welding rods to make the skeg completely solid (roughly 2-3").  I'm thinking OK probably should have done this in the original design or one of the updated hulls.  Do the Tridents have hollow or solid skegs?

Amos....... i have the piece i cut out to put my rod pod in .. i can split in in half with you. i wont give up the whole piece but would be willing to give ya a part of it.

Thanks Marilyn!  I think I save the piece from my transducer cable hole that I'll use in the interim.

Do the Tridents have hollow or solid skegs?

Hollow. 

I called the guys at Keelshield last year, they said they were working on Keelshield for kayaks when I called them. I have it on my bassboat and Whaler and love the stuff. He asked about what I wanted, price point I would pay, size.... He said the hardest part was finding an adhesive to bond their product to the hull. It seems different kayak manufacturers use different formulations. He also want to know which kayaks were the most popular. I told him for fishing IMHO it was Ocean Kayak, Hobies, Cobra, and Malibu's, at least here in Cali.