There's an occasional toll for putting one's equipment through hard use

That muggy weather we'd had for a week finally gave way to some cooler, drier air Friday evening, and by the time I was heading to the river Saturday morning it was sunny and beautiful with a Fahrenheit temperature in the low 70s.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then headed out onto the Mississippi with the intention of doing some kind of "play" workout that pushed the intensity.

A barge rig was coming downriver with some nice waves trailing behind it, and I peeled out to see what kind of surfing I could get.  A couple of waves passed beneath me as I searched for my balance; then I threw in a good sprint and seemed on the verge of catching a ride when CRACK!!!!  My right pedal broke free from the footboard.  Just like that, my surf session was over and I ferried over to the bank to inspect the damage.  The little eyes on which the pedal swivels had worn through--not really such a big surprise on a boat that's more than a decade old.  But it was disheartening to have to abandon my fun on the river on such a beautiful morning.  It's about 2000 meters from the mouth of the harbor back to the dock, and paddling this stretch was a chore with a compromised steering system.  Any time I needed the boat to turn right I had to reach down and pull on the starboard rudder line with my hand.

I finally made it, and I carried the boat up to my car to take it home for repairs.  I was annoyed to have such a project added to my to-do list, but if you use something long and hard enough it's eventually going to break, and any paddler worth his salt must be willing to fix his boat.

I spent time Saturday afternoon and yesterday doing the repair.  I unmounted the footboard from the footwell, but I didn't disconnect it from the rudder lines because reconnecting the lines is always a royal hassle, and I thought I could make the repair without disconnecting them.  Basically, I rebuilt the eyes on the pedal with Kevlar, fiberglass, and marine-grade epoxy resin, like this:

Once I had the fiber pieces glued on, I inserted some thickened epoxy inside each eye to make it more substantial and replace the plastic that had broken away.  That brown stuff that looks like it's dripping is the thickened epoxy; I used wood dust from one of my electric sanders as the thickening agent.  A woodworking background doesn't hurt when there's a boat that needs fixing.

Once the epoxy had hardened, I trimmed away as much of the messy stuff as I could, drilled out the eye holes, and put it all back together:

One can quibble with the cosmetics; in addition to the patches on the pedals, you can see previous repair work where the rudder lines emerge from inside the boat.  But I'd rather paddle an ugly surfski whose steering system works than a pretty surfski with no steering.

I took the boat back to the river this morning and met Adam for a brisk paddle of about 70 minutes.  My pedals weren't moving as freely as I would have liked, and I may have to tweak them a bit, but otherwise I had no trouble steering.

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