really bad

Bummer to hear that.  Could have helped out if it was lowrance.  Try out H-bird warranty & see if they will exchange it.  Worth a shot.  Dry it out first. 

Toss it in a small tub with rice to pull out the moisture.  Should be rated for that dunking I would think.  Is there an ipx rating for it in the manual?  Most are good for 1m @ 30 minutes.

Sorry to hear about your loss VK. I respect and admire your open honesty. i hope to get to fish with you sometime.

When ever I would drop my phone in water. ( and it is frequently  )
I would turn the defroster of my vehicle on a low setting and place my phone up on the dash near the vent. You just have to be careful if you leave the vehicle and it is a hot day. temperatures can rise considerably with the windows rolled up. Don't think 100 plus degrees is good for electronics.

 

 As for the amount of water that entered in such a short time frame, is it possible that when you sat and launched, that your weight helped to open the small crack by causing the area to flex "Open"?  It is amazing how much water can squirt inside a hull below the water line!  My 06' OB hull, (My second replacement hull) even after beefing up the areas prone to cracking with loads of hot glue, still formed a crack, while at my 2nd Del Valle F&C.  I too was only on the water for less than half hour when I realized something twernt rite.  I opened my center hatch to find all the stuff inside floating in 3" of water!  Fortunately most things were in Ziploc bags. Got back to shore and determined that my reinforcements had failed. 
  Got home, stripped what I wanted to keep from the hull and got 3rd replacement, my current 08' model OB.

You might also consider some pool noodles if you don't have some already. I have 27 in mine 

After I saw AB King's video of him purposely swamping his yak and not sinking I was sold.

If anyone can locate that video link that would be pretty cool to paste the link here.

vic,

Thanks for sharing. If it makes you feel better I have lost my kayak off the truck on the freeway, flipped the yak and lost a couple of nice rod and reels, dropped the kayak off the truck, dropped my iPhone into a lake, amongst many other stupid things as well. The good thing is we are able to learn from all these mistakes and gain experience from it all. A lot of it has to do with being overly excited to get on the water and fish, but you've got the right attitude of getting back out there and knowing what not to next time. Good luck and have fun fishing!

Roger

Man glad u r ok! And glad this happened in Lake Sonoma in March than Ft Ross in July! 

Lessons learned, but nothing out of the ordinary!  We've all lost stuff, made mistakes, and been humbled!  Fish on!

Agreed ... live to fish another day!

Like you and others, I've had my fair share of mishaps.  highway loss, filling hull, surf swamp/roll, and many more.
I had a 3" split in my hull from dropping the yak on a T-post that i didn't notice until i was at the red can in Monterrey, that was a looong, slow, wet, nervous paddle back.  Thank goodness for pool noodles and calm seas.  The yak was barely visible above water when i ghost shipped it onto the beach.

It's good this didn't happen at Albion or some of the rougher launches.  Im glad you're OK and learning

You did great in the face of danger and that is what counts!  Forget the stuff that didn't make it back to shore with you.  YOU made it back to shore!  Your gonna laugh about it from here on out and have a good story to share when you get together with other NCKA'ers.     If your FF head still doesn't work, I have a couple older models I'd be willing to give you if they work for your mount.

Here's a good one ! . I launched a 14.5 fiberglass boat with an older seahorse outboard out of coyote point. I drove about 1.5 miles south of the launch.
When i was ready to return. I put the outboard into gear throttled forward, there was a pop and the motor stopped. I quickly threw out my anchor because the tide was moving very quickly. Put the outboard into neutral and it started. Yeeha, here i go.
Put into gear and nothing.Put it into reverse. YES !!!. I drove that bad boy into reverse for 1.5 miles with water comming over the stern. Was pretty funny having everyone stairing at me coming in backwards at the harbor and there is also a walking trail there. " Good Times "

Glad to hear you made it back ok. All gear can be replaced with better, newer gear. You will learn with experience not to carry more gear and tackle on your kayak than you are willing to lose. And to put floats or leashes on everything.

From your pictures, it looked like the weld on that rudder failed. If the impact was enough to crack the weld, check the area where the rudder attaches to the kayak for damage.

As for testing for leaks in your kayak, fill the kayak with water while it is resting on the ground, and not on saw horses. It will be really heavy when filled.

Scupper leaks are the hardest to fix, mine had one in the seam in the seat scupper, I tried a dozen times to fix it with goop and it always leaked so I just plugged it with a Ping pong ball and gooped over it, two seasons so far so good. The bottom I cut a piece of plastic to cover the scupper and gooped over it. And when you fill it with water to test, definitely on the ground and you don't have to fill it all the way, just half then you just lean the yak left or right...