Improving the Reed paddle britches

I have been struggling for some time to find a satisfactory securing arrangement for my split spare paddle on both my sea kayaks (Virgo HV & Romany Excel Expedition).

The Virgo tries to present a solution by having two indentations in the foredeck that theoretically the loom of a set of splits could sit in, with bungy to hold them down, but the reality is that my Werner Corryvreckan doesn't naturally lie in those recesses, and the bungees just don't hold it in place when waves break across the deck. They end up pointing every which way, if not floating away on their own journey.

After lots of ultimately unsuccessful experimentation with plastic piping and hot glue, I eventually decided to put a lot more bungies on, and added rubber sheathing to them. Finally the paddles seem to be staying in place, in all but the worst conditions, such as a full-on surf session.

The situation is more complicated with the Romany.
There is a decent bungee arrangement on the foredeck for holding down the loom of the splits, but when the paddle is properly seated there, the tips of the blades are beyond my feet, and well out of range for me to get hold of them from the cockpit. To overcome this, I have been tying a string around the neck of each blade, and running it back to the bungees I can reach easily from the cockpit. Now if I need them, I can pull the string, free the paddles, and hopefully save the situation. What I can't do however, is replace them in the stowage position from the cockpit.

My main paddle nowadays is an Epic Mid Wing, which is also a 2-piece paddle. Ideally I'd love to be able to switch between the Wing and the Corryvreckan, as the situation demands, but so far a solution to that has eluded me.

In some ways the Romany is easier to work with, as glue will stick to the gelcoat, whereas it's almost impossible to glue anything to the HDPE of the Virgo. 
I have been using a relatively nice solution with a tube cut from high density foam glued to each side of the deck, but they didn't prove durable, and were still out of reach.

When I saw someone using paddle britches during the summer, I thought that maybe they were the solution I have been looking for, and as I was buying a spraydeck from Reed in the UK, I thought I'd get one of their paddle britches at the same time, and try it out.

My first impression was that it sits quite nicely on the foredeck, and shaped well to line up with the gunwale of the kayak, however I quickly realised there were three problems:

• The fixing arrangements made no sense, as it wasn't clear what they were to attach to, or how. If they were designed to attach to the deck-lines, they need to be aligned athwartships, but instead they were aligned fore and aft. Or perhaps having straps leading both ways would work.
• In the only position where I could make some kind of attachment, the fabric of the britches completely obscured the view of my compass (apparently completely unnecessarily).
• In either position, the paddle would still be out of reach (obviously this is a problem specific to my situation, and not specific to the Reed design), and I'd still need my bit of fiddley string.

There's a compass under there somewhere.

I was totally perplexed by this design, and was quite annoyed that I had wasted my money. My initial thoughts were that I'd have to cut out the section obscuring the compass, and sew/tie the britches on securely with bits of string, but I felt that shouldn't have been necessary for a brand new item. In frustration, I left a bad review on the Reed website.

I decided not to act on it immediately, and allowed some time to think over better solutions.

After some weeks of pondering, a thought came to me, so I decided to have a closer look.

The first step was to think about the ideal location for the paddle. Somewhere where I could reach it easily, without bits of string, and where there was plenty of bungee to hold it down.

The next step was to look at incorporating the britches in that location.

It would be great in this location, and on the opposite side, but clearly it just won't fit that way...in one piece.

So, if I could split the britches up the middle, and secure one leg an each side, it might just work, but if I did that, there's definitely be no returning it for a refund!
I decided to take a chance.

A quick seam up each side to stop the fabric from unravelling, then out with the scissors, make a cut, then offer it up.

That sits quite nicely there, but the next problem was how to secure it. It looked now like the fore-and-aft arrangement of the securing straps might actually be useful after all.

I removed the deck-line fittings and poked holes in the straps to match up with the recessed nuts, then sealed the frayed edges with heat from a soldering iron. Replacing the fittings through the holes in the strap effectively bolted the arrangement to the deck.

 

I felt that a little more securing was required to stabilise the front end, so rearranged the offcuts from the excess strap to bolt in with the foredeck bungee fitting.

I felt quite pleased with myself after that. It looked smart and should work, but the only way to know would be to test it in anger.

 

 

First use was on a lovely trip from Ballycotton to Roche's Point, and so far they have behaved exactly as I hoped. There was even a bit of excitement and a spill when landing in dumpy surf on Ballycroneen Beach, and the splits didn't budge.
It wasn't the most arduous test, but so far so good. I have yet to try and swap out the paddles from the cockpit, so time will tell on that.

 

I've been wondering since that trip if my 1 star on the Reed website was a bit too harsh. Maybe it was, but it shouldn't have required so much modification to make it work. Maybe I'll see if I can change the rating to 2 stars.