Broken Mirage Drive chain

I was jigging for lake trout today when one of the chains on my Mirage Drive broke.  The breakage disabled the drive, so I deployed my paddle and kept fishing. That reminded me why I do all of my fishing from a pedal kayak (a 13' Hobie Revolution) rather than a paddle kayak (my 13' Ocean Kayak Trident).  A motorboater friend passed me and stopped to say hello. For a while I tied my kayak to his boat and jigged. That made me wish I had a trolling motor with GPS spot lock capability on my kayak.  Or perhaps even a motorboat with a trolling motor with GPS spot lock capability.

I bought my Revolution in early 2014, and although I've put a lot of nautical miles on the kayak since that time, this is the first thing to break, other than a couple of rudder cords. So I can't complain about the broken chain. Fortunately I had a replacement chain and sprocket at home. Because the sprocket had a lot of wear, I replaced both the chain and the sprocket, and am ready to hit the water again.

Also for me a broken chain is the only issue that i ever encountered with my Hobie Outback (that i bought in 2012 and use a lot). So annual running costs are very low. In both cases the chain broke while current was ripping (Siletz and Columbia) and I was very lucky that the chain broke close to my launching spot. I now ALWAYS carry a spare chain, a wrench and screwdriver in my dry bag to replace the chain if i get stranded somewhere and using paddles would be a pita.

So in total i have purchased three chains over the years. By chance i kept the bags that they came in (with the price labels still on it). It is interesting to see how Hobie jacked up the price of these chains over time (V2 chain, so not an obsolete product).