Wilderness Systems Tarpon 140: Anchor me up.

It's been almost a month now that I have gotten into the kayak game and slowly but surely I am turning my new to me WST 140 into a fishing machine.  As should be the norm, I'd like to thank those who have posted blue prints on this site for those of us who are following.

Anchor System One: Bigger and bigger holes.  Might as well start off with the bad so things can only get better.  First off, fabrication wise I am probably above average so doing this type of work should have been fairly straight forward.  However, there is always a however....   

My first anchor system was going to be the standard trolley system.  This type of anchor system allows you to trolley a swivel point from the front of the boat to the back of the boat thereby allowing you to adjust the angle and direction of the kayak as you anchor down.  For me this was going to be most beneficial as I like to fish all types of conditions.  If you go on the net and especially youtube, this is probably the most featured style of anchoring system as well as one of the easiest to make.  If you don't feel like googling it, I can explain it pretty easily as it is actually very basic.  You clip on your choice of a multitude of releasable clips to the front and back handles.  Next you run a line from the front clip of the kayak to the back and then tie them together with a metal O ring or another clip.  That's it.  You pull on one of the lines and the O ring slides fore or aft.  You run your anchor line through the O ring and you have full adjustability on how you want to anchor down your Kayak.  Well, easy enough.  Got all the parts at the local Home Depot and off I was.  Then a huge mistake.  I thought for myself.  Really should try and shy away from thinking for yourself.  Way over rated.   Since my aft carry handle sits about ten inches from the tip, the line would hang towards the inside of the kayak.  I didn't like the look of the rope kind of riding on the top of the side so I figured I would put an eyelet farther back towards the tip and down the side so the trolley line would naturally run along the side of the kayak.  Got it all measured up, picked up some stainless still sheetmetal screws drilled a small hole, gooped up the screw before tightening them up.  Done.  Felt solid, ropes ran along the side, everything worked smoothly.

  Go to bed and I start thinking.    Some sheet metal screws into some thin plastic, add tension, and it is going to pull those screws out.  Crap.  Read up a bit and I see some of the more professional guys recommend using the aircraft style black aluminum rivets.  Okay, head down to Orchards to pick up a cheap rivet gun, figure what the hell and pick up some standard aluminum rivets as I wasn't sure I could find the aircraft grade.  Went by West Marine and saw that they only had stainless steel.  Talked to the guys there and they both highly recommended the stainless steel.  Fine, stainless steel it was.  Kind of worried me because if something happened and I had to take them out, drilling out stainless steel rivets surrounded by soft plastic was going to be tough.  Got home, found out the larger rivets that fit the eyelet required a larger hole.  No problem.  Drill, drill,  Slightly bigger holes but no worries.  In a few seconds a couple of ss rivets will be in place and I would be able to sleep at night.  As the eyelet had recessed screw holes, the nipple on the rivet gun couldn't push flush against the eyelet and the kayak so when I started squeezing the handle the eyelet pulled back and the stainless steel rivet didn't grab the inside of the kayak and pulled through the hole.  Shit.  Rivet gun, rivet, eyelet, no kayak.  Son of bitch shit.  Add to that, the cheap rivet gun did not allow you to release the rivet until you snapped off the stem and pulled it through the back of the gun.  Shit shit shit.  Using a cheap rivet gun you also find it is not strong enough to snap a ss rivet.  Crapping shit.  Finally, after trying a roto tool and then hacksawing the rivet to pieces and then taking the rivet gun apart I was able to get the rivet gun free from that rivet.  That still left me with just as much effort to get the actual rivet out of the eyelet.  Muther F'ing Son of a bitc...  After clearing that disaster, I figured there was a reason for no one recommending stainless steel rivets, and since West Marine did not sell aircraft quality rivets and since I had a kayak and not an airplane I figured screw it I'll settle for some soft aluminum Orchard Supply Hardware rivets.  Oh yea, did I mention coating everything up with some of that super sticky slow drying marine goop.  The stuff that basically coats everything leaving you with sticky white everything.  Shit on that glue.   

Everything is okay.  I am back to square one, pop in two easier to manage rivets and hey a year down the road if they loosen up I drill out the soft aluminum and pop in some aircraft ones.  I'm going to sleep well tonight.  After filing down the rivet guns nipple so it now ran flush up against the eyelet and the rivet, added a glob of white marine goop, pushed hard against the kayak and started squeezing.  Cheap rivet guns are not built with physics/leverage in mind so even with aluminum rivets it was a tight squeeze.  No problem though, held steady squeezing, kept the pressure forward towards the kayak  when all of a sudden the tension loosened up but didn't snap like what should have happened.  I take a look and there is a small gap between the eyelet and the kayak.  What the hell.  The stem didn't snap off so I couldn't release the gun and pull it off the rivet.  Something was wrong so I tugged a little to see if it was grabbing and son of a bitch shit crap F.  The rivet pulled out of the kayak.  It had mushroomed a bit, enough so that I couldn't get it out of the eyelet but what the hell it pulled out.  Son of a bitch.  The only thing I could figure in my rage that the plastic kayak was too soft to rivet.  Maybe everybody else used some special magic kayak rivets or something, but this wasn't going to work.  F'ing sons a bitches crap hell F. 

Now what.  Rage settles.  Plan C.  I read about well nuts.  I saw a guy install a rod holder using well nuts.  I read an article how well nuts were the preferred method of bolting objects to kayaks.  I needed well nuts and I need them bad.  This was Sunday and my fishing day was ticking away.  Give me a damn well nut.  Online, West Marine had well nuts.  Off to West Marine for well nuts.   Bought the last pack of well nuts as it looked like they were discontinueing them.  Why would they discontinue well nuts when that is the only way to bolt something to a kayak without using magical kayak rivets.  Oh well, I had my pack of well nuts.  Get home, got a bigggggerrrr drill bit 3/8” to be exact and drilled two pretty big holes in my kayak.  Not a sweat of worry as well nuts were simple to use and “the” way of bolting items to kayaks.  More white marine glue to cover the last square footage around the two holes with a third layer of sticky goo, and then started screwing in the rubber well nuts.  Hmmm, kind of soft and gushy.  Maybe you have to torque the shit out of them so that the case hardened steel insert in the well nut expands and basically permanently mates with the inside of the kayak sandwiching the soft rubber and creating a watertight seal.  Screw screw screw,  rubber expands and squishes, screw screw screw, and then pop, out comes the well nuts and then my heart drops, and the rage flares.  What the forking is going on.  Well, nuts are cheap pieces of soft rubber.  How in the F is a soft piece of rubber going to mount anything.  Son of a bitch shit.  I am royally f'd.  I play with it a little more and find if I don't torque down the screw that the seal is somewhat permeable but holds fairly steady.  Definitely wouldn't hang off a cliff with the rope attached to that well nut.  I just f'd up my kayak by putting two 3/8” holes in the side.  Brilliant. 

Anchor trolley, functional, but it makes for a hard night trying to get to sleep.  And to make things really shaky, I'm thinking the solution is to cut out a little six inch or so hole and install a little hatch so I can reach inside and maybe put a nut and bolt set-up and tell people the hatch is for extra storage.  Yea, thats going to go well.  I need to sleep.


Anchor System Two:  This one I got right off the NCKA website.  In fact they stickied it so that I wouldn't miss it.  Quick Release Anchor System: Step By Step Tutorial by Tote.  This was the way to go.  Take all the thinking out of the equation.  You buy these.  You mount it like this (with pictures as well), don't modify, just do this.  And that's what I did.  It was shockingly quick, easy, and cheap.  Rage level 1 (bought the wrong thickness floating rope so had to go back to Home Depot).  Twenty minute job and I was done.  Thanks Tote.

Anchor System Three:  Feeling confident after System Two and needing a confidence booster I designed this to match my current fishing style of pushing up against a wall or pylon and dropping minnows.  Here I picked up a cheap pair of spring clips attached a piece of rope to it and tied a clip to the other end of the rope.  This will allow me to tie up quickly to a wall, pylon, or tree without a bunch of work.  Quick and easy and accomplished in three minutes.  I am the master fabricator.  I can do anything (except anchor system 1). 

The fix to anchor system one prior to boring out 3/8” holes into the side.  Take a look at how thick the actual material that you are riveting into.  It is hella thick on my kayak, a lot thicker than what I had imagined.  That was why the rivets weren't working.  I had got what I thought were the right length of rivet as I was worried about getting them too long and having too much material and a sloppy mount.  Because it was so thick and add to that the thickness of the plastic eyelet, the rivet wasn't pushing all the way through and behind the plastic.  It has nothing to grab and would just pull out.  Now I just need to find some 3/8” rivets, a massive rivet gun, and a foot long eyelet and I'm all set.  Anybody got a six inch wide drill bit?
 

Anchor Trolley Front.  Used a dual clip bungee to give it some flex and so it keeps tension on the rope.

Side shot showing the Quick Release Anchor System (QRAS).  Yellow rope is the floating hollow core which releases the anchor line.  The cleat can be used to lock down the QRAS but also to lock down the anchor trolley (white rope).  I can make the anchor trolley a quick release by doubling up the line and passing both through the clip and tying off the tension side to the cleat.  Get into trouble and the double line slides out of the clip and I am free.

Main anchor line and attachments.  Pretty much followed the instructions to a tee on this part.

Short anchor rig.  I think they call this a brush anchor.  I like to just side up to some structure and drop bait so this will probably be the most utilized of the anchor systems.  Plus I designed it myself.  I kind of designed it based on the level of those monkees who would lick a stick drop it into an ant hole and then pull out and eat the ant that was stuck to the stick.  Not super intelligent stuff, but functional.  I would like any further imitations to be called a SILAS (Steve is lost anchor system).  Plus send me a dollar or I will sue you.

I see your from Sacramento WTTM, if your planning on fishing the local rivers (Sac, American, Feather, etc.) I would highly recommend againist using the grappling anchor style anchor as thing can go from good to bad in a split second even with a quick realease set up. That style anchor will hang up on everything!

Also there are many different kinds of rivets,

Standard aluminum....only a small mushroom bottom when tight, typically used on metal.


Then there are those specifically made for a plastic type application...note the slots along the side which allows for some serious surface area coverage when tight.


The difference below.

Hey Abdiver.  Do you anywhere local where I can pick up some of the wide spread rivets around Sac.  I guess I could order them but for a couple of rivets I would rather just get them and go.  In regards to the anchor, I was looking at the mushrooms just for that reason.  I figure around an 8 or 10 should do it.  I had a close call on my aluminum boat when my down rigger got caught up and it almost sunk me right there.  I definitely respect the power of current.  What does WTTM stand for?

Hopefully see you on the water.

Steve

WTTM! = welcome to the madness.

The type of anchor to use in rivers is the pyramid type. Usually 8lbs or so.

Hey Abdiver.  Do you anywhere local where I can pick up some of the wide spread rivets around Sac.  I guess I could order them but for a couple of rivets I would rather just get them and go.

I know adventure sports off of El Camino and 80 has them.

Thanks AbDiver.  I'll check them out. 

Great post. Glad things worked out for ya.
WTTM!

Those rivets are used in automotive application a lot. In your area look up Mace fasteners. You can get the rivets real inexpensive through them. Or you are going to pay 10bucks  for like 10 of them. Craig

Thanks Ravens,

I haven't made it out to Adventure Sports yet but I did call them.  $.75 each and they had them in stock.  I'll check out Mace fasteners and if they are closer and cheaper I'll do them instead.

An update:  Crap like having the not so solid wellnuts holding the main anchor point for my anchor trolley drive me crazy.  Seriously, it just tugged at my soul.  I had eluded to the fact earlier that I would end up cutting a six inch hole in order to fix what started as two 1/8" rivet holes and ended up with dual 3/8 well nut holes and loose as a goose well nuts.  I finally determined that it was worth going and installing a deck plate (round hatch) in the far back.  This would end up serving multiple purposes.  One, I could nut and bolt the anchor eyes and feel confident that it wasn't going to pull out at any second, two was that there is no other way to access the rear, actually, it just isn't possible as the closest access point is center kayak in front of the seat, and three, I have a worn through rear keel that I have been patching and patching but would like to install some sort of skid plate for a final solution. 

Because the Tarpon 140 has raised running board like ridges in the stern, I only had the far back corner to work with.  Measuring out from end or ridges to side walls, there was exactly six inches to play with.  It was tight but I could get a six inch outer diameter with a 4+ inch inner diameter hole.   Searching online I saw that West Marine had the perfect solution a 5 3/4" outer with a 4" inner hole.  Perfect.  Picked one of those up and matching ss screws to go with it.  Already had the marine goop, so was good to go. 

The only real problem was that because there was not very much room to work with, there was no way to get any normal cutting device into the nook to cut the hole out.  My solution pretty much followed this whole process, more holes.  I threw caution to the wind and etched the inner circumferance of the round deck plate, measured how much extra needed to clear the plate side walls and took a drill bit that its radius met those dimensions.  I used the initial etched circle as my center line and drilled hole after hole around the circle.  Basically I cut out the circle with a bunch of drill holes.  Surprisingly it came out really smooth as kayak plastic is pretty soft and the drill bit was easily managed.  I used a file to hone the edges smooth and the deck plate fit in there snug as a bug.  The hole was still a bit tight for a full arm insert so I went ahead and drilled two screw size holes just aft of the well nut holes and mounted the eye with screws, washers, and nylon nut before I mounted the deck plate.  Sweeeeeet.  Since I have been plastic welding the stern keel, my plastic welding skills have advanced tremendously so I was able to use pieces off of the cut out for the deck plate to patch the well nut holes.  Seemless.  It was like that freaking disaster never took place.  I can sleep through the night now.  Oh yea, having the deck plate and inside rear exposed, I found a Yakima tie down strap (score) and I can reinsert the plastic tubing that is used for the rudder cables which had pulled out and fell inside.

Following Abdivers advice I did pick up some of the made for plastic rivets over at Adventure Sports.  They were 75 cents each.  Haven't used them yet, but my next drilling project is going to be adding some flush mount rod holders.  I think I have a system now so it should go relatively smoothly.  If not, no problem, another deck plates, some more plastic welding, no problem.

Another update:  After a couple of fishing trips and the decision to start setting up a green underwater led fishing light set up I uncapped the rear deck plate to see if my new gel cell battery was going to fit.  It didn't, but after taking the cover off I saw what I thought was one of my rod holders looking up at me from the hole.  I have a pool tube formed as a circle in the center area where my mid hatch is and I usually stash my rod holders there when in transit.  The pool tube is tall enough to not allow the rod holders or my containers to bypass it.  Well, when I pulled it out it wasn't my rod holder, but a nice Ram mount set up with a suction cup base and a GPS mount.  Sweet.  That just paid for all my nick nacks setting up all the anchor stuff.  With a Ram mount I can add more stuff.  For about $50 I can pick up the GPS that mates with the GPS mount, or I can just switch the mount to a IPhone mount and I can use it for my phone to video as well as GPS in my car.  So, I recommend everybody to hack up their kayak especially in those areas that have no access.  You never know what you might find (6' blonde, million dollar lottery ticket, gold bars, lost keys...), at worse it allows you to get in there and hose out that mystery thing that makes your kayak stink.