outfitting with a dagger saddle

[driftwood]

Well the boat of nine lives (and nine welds) is finally on its way to the recycling. Too broke to even think of selling.

The new boat, a dagger nomad 8.5 is waiting for me to pick it up and I am thinking ahead to installing the dagger saddle from the dead boat (getting that saddle was really the only reason I bought that pitoned, oilcan-ed, P.O.S. with no rear pillar in the first place).

I have 2 concerns the first specific to the Dagger outfitting in the nomad, the second regarding the saddle, please comment on components you are familiar with:

-The dagger pillar in the bow of the boat is plastic. With foam pillars I did not hesitate to slide the saddle under, slotting the foam into the saddle as it is designed to be. I am afraid the plastic pillar is rigid enough that doing this might put stress on the hull. my first thought was to shave some off the bottom of the pillar with a grinder (this might make selling it latter as a kayak harder) and maybe run a bolt through the pillar and saddle for good measure.

-The last 2 conversions I have had both oil can-ed pretty bad. not sure how to prevent this or if it is even a c1 specific problem. I think it is likely because there is no stiffener that runs the length of the hull (attaching the dagger saddle in the stern seamed tricky so I left it loose). I was thinking of adding an aluminum piece like in this article http://cboats.net/outfitting/fencerail.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Thoughts?

John

[Todhunter]

I just picked up a beater C1. My C1 outfitting (as it came from the previous owner) has a piece of plastic that acts like the aluminum banding in the article you linked to. It is home spun outfitting made from the original seat rail that was in the kayak - not a Dagger pedestal. The piece of plastic I mentioned is bolted through the hull in the factory spots on each side (it is a Jefe Grande) and is bolted to the front of the rail. It prevents the front of the outfitting from sliding left to right and seems to work pretty good. The back of my outfitting doesn't have one of these, and is just wedged under the rear foam pillar. It didn't move at all when I had it out last weekend for the maiden voyage on Chattooga Section IV. Not sure if it will prevent oil canning or not, but it sure keeps the outfitting from moving in the boat.

Hope to see you on the river soon, John...it's been too long.

[cheajack]

It is easy to make foam walls to replace the plastic pillar if you want to do it.

[Larry Horne]

The stock plastic pillar is good. it's designed to fit that hull and as far as I know it is sized for a 1/2" or so space (foam for you) between it and the hull. so i'd use it. the trick might be figuring out how to bolt it down. you need to bolt it or it'll just rotate back.
The dagger saddle is pretty weak though as far as hull support goes. gotta make sure it's wedged under the back of the cockpit well. even then it has not much backbone. you could try to add some more backbone to it, but I would stay away from aluminum. It'll bend and just stay bent. you want something with memory. Like an old ski?? maybe a paddle shaft??