“What do you want for Christmas ?” My parents had been asking me the same question for several months – at my age, its not easy…. Ferrari, dancing girls ? Well, they know I am mad about fishing, and really into kayak fishing at the moment…. and I had been thinking about getting some kind of floatation device for the kayak for a while now.
Sit-on-top kayaks are pretty difficult to sink, but I have heard of a few occasions where bungs had been left out and hatches were not secured properly – so I asked a few questions and looked around…
Lots of good DIY solutions; including using pool noodles and polystyrene and inflatable beach balls inside the kayak. I used to use a large dry bag inside the yak, but I found that over a number of months, it gradually deflated. Then I found some good posts which were looking at the same thing for canoes – using larger bouyancy bags specifically designed for the purpose. I picked one which looked big enough to fit inside my Ocean Kayak Trident 15, but not so big, that it wouldn’t fit inside the hull.
Xmas present sorted…
I was going to put the bag in the forward hatch (just because the shape looked like it would fit in there well). But I use that area to store my C-Tug and other bits and pieces, so I looked at other possibilities. It looked like it would fit into the rod pod partially inflated, then it could be pushed further back so that it sat between the seat and the tankwell – perfect.
The bag had a tube with a valve on it which is used to inflate/deflate the thing…
The bag was partially inflated using the tube and valve…
Then put into through the rod pod into the space between the seat/tankwell…
You need to be careful not to inflate the bag to much – because the air inside expands when it gets hot – just enough so that it will keep the kayak afloat.
Not only does it provide enough bouyancy to keep the kayak afloat, but it also displaces any water – so being quite large, this is good news. It doesn’t weigh anything and I probably wouldn’t store anything in the position where it is currently anyway.