I’m considering the Sailrig - learned this year that my knees are no longer up to Laser club racing standards. And I have three underutilized kayaks laying around. Every post I can find on Sailrigs discusses its application to CLC kayaks, yet the product page suggests it will work with others. I bought the study plan, but it really provides insufficient detail to answer some very basic questions. So, first, has anyone tried the Sailrig with a Perception Montour 12, an Old Town Otter, or a Hurricane tandem (probably not, but I had to try)? If so, how’d it go? For anyone who has used Sailrig with any non-CLC kayak that’s plastic, what did you do for a mast base? Finally, has anyone tried this with a Laser, Sunfish or Minifish?
I’ll take a stab at it. Your first 2 kayaks are similar to the CLC Wooducks in size and cockpit openings, while the Hurricane tandem is more like a Mill Creek. Both styles work well with the CLC Sailrigs, so it should also work well on your boats once the mounting problem is solved.
The biggest problem with the mounting is the hull material. ABS plastic is not as stiff as plywood. I think that the most straightforward approach would be to add doublers. Depending on your comfort and experience level, you could do this by through-bolting strips of ABS plastic or wood to your hull or bonding them with some kind of adhesive.
Alternatively, if you’re up for some advanced materials work, you could bond fiberglass and carbon fiber as the doublers. This would make the doublers conform exactly to the hull shape and result in a true composite structure exactly where the extra stiffness was needed.
And speaking of where it’s needed, the greatest stresses are where the mast rests on the inside bottom and where it attaches at deck level. The deck attachment acts as a fulcrum making the mast & sail a lever that is moving against the bottom of the boat. Add to that the downward pressure of the rig concentrated on the mast base and you can see the need for some serious reinforcement there. The aka attachment points should also be reinforced. A block of wood or a cast piece of epoxy would do nicely.
For the mast step inside the boat I’d use a circle of 3/4” plywood bonded to the inside bottom. I’d make it as large as possible consistent with comfortable seating for paddling and sailing. I’d also glue a ring cut from 3/4” plywood. with an inner diameter that fits the mast and and an outer diameter at least 1 1/2” larger than the inner. I’d also put generous epoxy/woodflour fillets around the out side of the ring to transfer the forces to the base plate and the same for the base plate and the inside bottom.
If the geometry was such that I had to cut a hole in my deck to pass the mast through I’d reinforce the area inside and out with fiberglass and carbon fiber before cutting the hole. It would act as a mast partner. Alternatively you could use layers of thin plywood.
Is this enough to get you started?
Laszlo
Thank you Laszlo, for that detailed response! Definitely enough to get me started. I was a little nervous about epoxy forming a sufficiently strong bond with the molded plastic, but that’s really my inexperience showing. I’ve only used marine epoxy to repair damage to a fiberglass boat. I appreciate your advice. /Mike
Mike,
You have good instincts. ABS plastic needs some special treatment for epoxy to stick to it. Check with the epoxy manufacturer to be sure, but the high performance epoxies generally will work with the correct surface treatment (sanding, solvent wash, flame, etc.).
If you can’t find a compatible epoxy, 3M 5200 will stick to ABS.
And you can always test with Lego bricks, which are also ABS.
Laszlo
In the way past I used West Systems GFlex epoxy to repair a canoe made using Royalex which was a type of plastic
Thanks again Laszlo. I’ll need to think about whether it’s time to replace my ABS kayaks with one of CLCs….
Thank you David. I checked the product page and it does look like the right choice for the application. They do sort of warn about tensile adhesion (I think that’s the term) being subject to substrate conditions, and its rating for that is much lower than regular 105. I wonder how much force the mast foot would impart on the plywood donut mast base. I would not want to be sitting aft of that junction if it let go 
Hi Maikeru,
i have been watching this discussion and thought i would weigh in based on my general understanding of the issues involved here and a lot of hands on experience owning and repairing ABS boats, traditional polyester and glass boats, as well as various forms of epoxy/composites..
first, i would simply suggest that the idea of trying to retrofit a clc sailrig set-up to an ABS plastic kayak strikes me as a bad idea. if you were dealing with other type of material (glass/polyester resin as or a clc wood expoxy) i think you would be fine given the technology for modification around the existing structure.
i have sailed and repaired many small sailboats (lasers, sunfish, etc) including some ABS boats from Hobie Cat. i think if you are trying to retrofit any kind of high load attachment to an ABS hull, i would skip the idea unless it was designed/molded in from the start. the repair/modification technologies are just not up to it in my view. i also have built many CLC designed kayak but also own a high end ABS kayak that i use when i anticipate that i am going to be banging into rocks or am hosting a friend who has little experience kayaking.
while an ABS hull is strong in a lot of way (like inpact resistance for bumping into rocks, abraision resistence, tear resistance ), their ability to support a load like a sail mast is just not something i would trust to adesives described nor do i think the hulls have the inherent stiffness where it matters to support a mast unless they were designed that way from the start.
if it were me and i wanted to attach a sailrig to a kayak, i would only do it with an existing polyester/glass boat or an epoxy boat… or an ABS boat that was molded from the start to support a sailrig and amas.
i realize my argument may lack technical depth…it comes more as a practioner who has played with all of the materials/epoxies and boat types described above.
h
Hi Howard,
Thank you for weighing in! Your experience working with ABS boats and other boatbuilding materials is really helpful. As I reflected on Laszlo’s engineering ideas, it occurred to me that ABS is just different and might not have the right properties for this application. As you suggest, it’s a great material for taking abuse without failing as long as the design fits the application. In my case, well, square peg round hole may be the apt description.
I truly appreciate all the advice from you, Laszlo and Dan. What a great resource this builder’s forum is!
Many thanks,
Mike