P&H skeg
Maintenance, troubleshooting and repair
1 Introduction
1.1 This guide
This guide describes how to disassemble / assemble, adjust, remove and replace every component of the P&H rope skeg system.
I’ve owned a P&H boat for many years, and most of the folk I paddle with regularly also paddle P&H kayaks. I tend to end up fixing their skegs when something goes wrong. I also do a fair bit of work keeping the heavily used P&H boats at my canoe club in working order. This guide started as a set of notes for me to remember how to sort out various recurring problems. It’s by no means complete and it’s been created without any input from P&H / Pyranha Mouldings Ltd. However, I hope you find it useful and that you can avoid some of the frustrations I experienced along the way.
If you do find this useful, perhaps you might consider buying me a (virtual) beer by clicking the link below:
Many thanks to everyone who’s allowed me to fiddle with their skegs over the years, as well as those who have been kind and patient enough to help work out how to fix things. Thanks also to Kathleen and Beth for their proof reading and suggestions to improve the clarity of these notes
1.2 Skeg systems
Unlike most types of kayak, the typical British sea kayak has moving parts. The need to keep the boat controllable in wind from different directions necessitates either a skeg or a rudder, and UK based designers have typically opted for skegs. The skeg must be capable of adjustment from fully up (paddling into wind) to fully down (downwind) through a range of intermediate positions (paddling across the wind). Any system with moving parts on a seagoing kayak is subject to salt water, sand and grit and occasional impacts. It must allow precise adjustment whilst being reliable and field maintainable. As yet, no skeg system seems to perfectly meet these criteria.
The traditional approach to skeg actuation is to run a cable from the slider through a tube to the skeg box. The skeg is lowered by pushing the cable through the tube and raised by pulling the cable under tension. The system is simple and can work well. It is used in (e.g.) Valley sea kayaks. However, if the skeg is inadvertently pushed in (e.g. by hitting a rock or beach), the unsupported length of wire tends to kink, making the system more difficult or impossible to use. Rockpool use a similar system with the wire lowering the skeg in tension to avoid this problem.
There have been other approaches to skeg actuation over the years including Kartitek’s Hydroskeg, which uses hydraulics to raise and lower the skeg. Being virtually friction-less, the system is a joy to use, but is complex and field repairs are not simple.
An alternative approach is the rope skeg. In this system, the skeg blade is lowered by bungee cords in the skeg box and raised by pulling against these cords using a rope. The rope is held by a jam cleat behind the cockpit. The system is simple and field maintainable, and doesn’t require the user to carry a bulky spare cable. However, the rope typically runs across the back deck, making it possible to tangle with kit and during rescues. Fine adjustment of the system is difficult without any visual index, especially as the jam cleat is usually behind the cockpit.
Around 2007, P&H began fitting their kayaks with a new rope skeg system. The system operated like a standard rope skeg with the use of a bungee to lower the skeg and a cord to raise it. However, rather than a jam cleat, the system used a novel skeg slider with a releasable ratchet system in an attempt to combine the simplicity and maintainability of a rope skeg with the precise adjustability of a wire skeg. The Mark 2 version of the system works well, but maintaining the system can be a little fiddly. These notes are an attempt to help people look after and repair these P&H rope skegs.
1.3 Versions of the P&H rope skeg system
The original P&H system (Mk1), from 2007, used a metal bar to support the button in the skeg slider. The slider ran along a narrow V-shaped channel. In some cases, this system had very high friction. One problem apparently related to the metal bars, some of which were not straight (it is said that they were cut from reels, with the metal from near the centre of the reels being more bent than that from the outside). In 2010, P&H issued a statement acknowledging the problems, claiming that they had been fixed in new boats and offering to fix existing boats under warranty.
In 2011, P&H came up with a revised design for the skeg slider (Mk2). The metal bar was replaced with a composite rod, the housing was changed and the slider button redesigned. This was a great improvement on the Mk1 system. The new slider box could be retrofitted to old plastic boats fairly easily.
In 2015, P&H brought the ‘Skudder’ system to market. The Skudder can be raised and lowered like a conventional skeg but once lowered, it rotates as a rudder actuated by foot pedals. The Skudder is optional, but boats without it now have a different skeg setup that fits into the same space as the Skudder system. Whilst the skeg slider is unchanged since the Mk2, this ‘Mk3’ version has a different attachment of the rope to the skeg and the skeg is now internally sprung rather than being pulled down by a bungee cord. The skeg slider occupies a different position in front of the cockpit on boats fitter with this system. We refer to this as a ‘skudder-type skeg’ in these notes.
These notes focus on the Mk2 system, as this is the system I have most experience with. Hopefully it will be useful to those with Mk1 systems (same skeg setup, but different slider, can be upgraded to Mk2) and Skudder-type systems (same slider, different skeg setup).