The front pad eye on a Hobie makes a decent drag plate

Don't ask me how I know!

Ouch, that hurts to see.

How did you manage that?

That sux!   

Judging by the heat generated by the friction being enough to melt the plastic around the screw holes, I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that this met pavement somewhere over 15 mph at some point.

That sux!   

Judging by the heat generated by the friction being enough to melt the plastic around the screw holes, I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that this met pavement somewhere over 15 mph at some point.

DING DING DING! We have a winner!

Look this is all very embarrassing but in short: I had a weld break on my trailer last Thursday night heading over to PC. The result was dragging the front of the yak for a ways while I slowed down and pulled over. I am super lucky that it happened where it did (in PC) when it did (11pm). It could have been a whole catastrophe in a different situation. Surprisingly, this is the only damage to the entire kayak.

I'm adding reinforcement to a few weak points on the trailer and will start inspecting it more regularly.

Some years ago a local kayaker's kayak came off the top of his vehicle and got run over by a semi, which busted the kayak into smithereens.  The pieces were on display at a local watersports store for a while.  It was a pretty sad sight.  The kayaker was actually lucky.  The kayak could have gone through the windshield of a vehicle behind him and injured or killed somebody.

Yeah, looks like you got lucky with the minimal damage.