B.Y.O.K. : Bring Your Own Kayak The Ups and Downs of traveling with a sectional Kayak  The Concept The idea of lugging around 3 oversized pieces of parcel halfway around the globe all the way to Perth/Australia, or Patagonia/Chile does not look very appealing at first glance. Add the frustrating moment after being for 2 days on planes or airports, when you realize your pride and joy, your brand new 3-piece kayak, just won't fit into the cab at the rural Puerto Montt airport.
After google-ing for kayak outfitters before the Chile trip in 2006 it became painfully apparent that I would have 2 really bad choices and one quite appealing choice for my month long trip in the waters West of Patagonia: The first option was to rent a plastic Prijon boat from an outfitter close to Puerto Montt, and thus to paddle in a quite populated area. The second option was to bring a folding kayak with me on the plane down to Chile. Both options seemed funny to me: Why paddling a true expedition workhorse kayak at home in the protected waters of NY harbor, and then paddling on your big trip in foreign and exciting waters a bulky, plastic rental watercraft with a shopping net mounted on the front deck? Option 3 just looked the best: Go there with a 3-piece, or "sectional", kayak. At first glance, the 3-piece concept looks a little like a mad scientist's idea: Who really came up with the idea to cut a brand-new kayak with a band saw into 3 pieces, only to glue it together with some stripes of fiberglass and 4 bolts on each double bulkhead connection? The second question, which might be much more interesting than the first, is: Who wants to paddle such a fragile looking object? Answer: The person who rejects to paddle the unknown rental kayak or a folding kayak in conditions where your life might depend on the most important piece of safety device a kayaker owns: The hard-shell kayak.
Other Advantages of Sectional Kayaks - Owners or 3-piece kayaks can transport the three sections of the kayak sections inside a car (by folding down the rear sets), rendering a car topping device unnecessary, and making the drive to the launch site safer and faster. - You will be able to store your kayak in a closet in an apartment. Due to the short length of the sections, it is possible to navigate the pieces up and down the narrowest inner-city staircases. - You will be able to commute by public transportation with your kayak to rolling class by bringing only the middle section.
The Construction
Kayak manufacturers are using 2 different methods to join the 3 pieces to a single hull: Valley Canoe Products uses 4 nuts and bolts at each double bulkhead connection, creating a truly "invisible" connection if you ignore the tiny seam between the segments.
Advantage of Valley's Nuts-and-Bolts Connection:
- A simple, solid, invisible connection which is pleasing to the eye, and which needs little maintenance.
Disadvantages of the Nuts-and-Bolts Connection:
- The bulkheads have to be drilled, creating 4 holes to accomodate the bolts, which creates sources for possible leaky hatches.
- Long assembly time of appr 30 minutes, involving yoga-alike positions to reach and turn the bolts inside the hatches.
- The boat has a very heavy lay-up due to the large amount of fiberglass needed in order to reinforce the glassing-in of the bulkheads, and in order to prevent the bulkheads from popping out under stress, such as in dumping surf (see pics from yellow NDK Explorer with popped out bulkheads).
Nigel Dennis Kayaks (NDK, or "Sea Kayaking UK"), and Rockpool Kayaks are using a design featuring clips at the joints of the hulls instead of nuts and bolts. 2 clips on the bottom of the kayak, and 2 on the top. The clips are adjustable in length, and thus tension. Rockpool Kayaks state on their website: " [Our] Three-piece-kayaks are available with a bolt-free connection which guarantees leak free hatches, weigh saving and less stress on the kayak's hull."
Advantages of the Clips Connection:
- Simple, fast assembly time of less than 2 minutes.
- Neither of the double bulkheads have to be drilled to accomodate bolts, creating no holes, and thus source for leakages, and (at least in theory) dry hatches.
- Boat design/lay-up is appr. 3-5 pds. lighter since much less fiberglass reinforcement is need to glass-in the bulkheads since there is virtually no stress on the bulkheads in order to keep the kayak pieces together.
Disadvantages:
- There will be clips on the bottom of the hull. Although they are recessed, the clips and the recesses create some fraction. This fraction can be limited by putting a tape of duct tape over the clips.
There are currently 3 manufacturers I know of who do 3-piece sea kayaks: Valley Canoe Products (VCP), Rockpool Kayaks, Nigel Dennis Kayaks (NDK). Or you convert your current one piece kayak into a 3-piece kayak, as described and illustrated in a DIY article in Sea Kayaker magazine (see right column of this website).
Transportation Costs 3-piece Nordkapp under stairwell on ferry to Puerto Chacabuco/Patagonia (Chile)
Patagonia/Chile Trip New York City to Santiago de Chile: $100 on Continental Airlines Santiago de Chile to Puerto Montt: $50 on LAN Chile Puerto Montt to Puerto Chacabuco: $25 on Ferry (24 hours ferry ride) Australia Trip: Perth (Australia) to New York City: Free ($0.00) on Qantas Airlines
Ireland Trip
High Speed Ferry Dublin to Holyhead (Wales): Free ($0.00)
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Now a 2-piece kayak. Shipwrecked on the coast of Western Australia, Feb 2007 The Praxis On the water, the 3-piece kayak performs just like a regular kayak if you forget that you might find yourself doing a surf landing and experiencing the bow section flying past your head, what happend in Australia after the tip of the bow made some ground contact in dumping surf. A well stocked fiberglass repair kit, some spare nuts and bolts or spare clips, depending on your lay-up, are a wise addition to your camping kit. The most interesting part in manoevering a 3-piece kayak is actually on land. It starts with the task of getting the 3-piece kayak into a cab at home (preferably a van), and to convince the driver that "I am doing this all the time ... " and that the kayak does, or better has to (since your plane is leaving in 90 minutes), fit into the cab. This discussion with the cab driver serves as a warm-up for the real challenge: Your discussion with the multiple airline representatives who are getting summoned to your check-in counter "to help you" with the check-in process. These customer representatives actually try to prevent you, or your kayak, or both, or any other chosen combination, from boarding the plane by all means necessary. You now and here have to display a confidence, bordering to arrogance, that "you are doing this all time" (yes, again), and to convince the enlarged check-in crowd on the other side of the counter that you chatted just yesterday 1/2 hour on the phone with an airline representative, with the airline's very own John Smith, or Susan Jones, who assured you that checking in the 3-piece kayak would be "no problem at all". Since most airlines do agree to take surfboards on their planes, but prohibit fiberglass kayaks, it considerably speeds up the check-in process if one mentions the item to be checked-in is a "surf-board-kayak", which in fact, is not that far from the truth. Right?
After landing at your destination with your 3-piece kayak in the belly of the plane, the fun does not end. After picking up the pieces at the oversized luggage counter and putting the 3 pieces of the kayak on the luggage cart either vertically or horizontally, you will come to the conclusion that - no matter how you place the kayak on the cart - the doors and hallways of the airport are either to low or too narrow, or your kayak is too high or too wide to make your way through the airport. Another disadvantage handling a 3-piece kayak is the heavy weight, caused by the double bulkheads design, the extra fiberglass material which has been used to reinforce the connections and bulkheads, and the weight of the hardware (nuts and bolts, or clips) needed to keep the sections attached to each other. Weights of 3-piece Kayaks - Valley Nordkapp HM 3-piece with nuts and bolts connection (4 nuts and bolts on each double bulkhead): 72 pds. - NDK Explorer with a combination of nuts and bolts (mounted in the lower part bulkheads) & clip design (top connection): 74 pds. - NDK Explorer in the "Elite" lay-up with a clip-only connection (clips on top and bottom): 54 pds. Recessed Clip connections visible far right DIY: Convert your Kayak into a sectional Kayak In 1991, "Sea Kayaker" Magazine run a DIY workshop portraying the efforts of a handy kayaker from New Jersey who converted his Valley Nordkapp HM into a 3 piece kayak by the means of a band saw, and put it back together with amazing results by using the described Valley method. The extremely handy and ingenious kayaker and author is Steven J. Szarawarski, who wrote the article "You can take it with you: Making your own kayak a take-apart", as published in Sea Kayaker Magazine issue 29, Summer 1991, starting on page 56. This particular Sea Kayaker magazine issue is out of print, but Sea Kayaker Magazine is offering to xerox the article and mail out the copy of this DIY workshop for $4.00 + shipping . See www.seakayakermag.com for back issue ordering details. Purchasing a 3-piece kayak New made-to-order 3 piece kayaks run between $3,900 (Nigel Dennis Explorer) to up to $4,900 (Valley Canoe Products), pending on the chosen customized options such as a slider or wire skeg (wire skeg with slider control mounted in stern section) etc. When ordering a new 3-piece kayak it is propably a good idea to think about available weight saving options such as: - Ordering the kayak with customized (which means a usually shorter) bulkhead length, with eliminates the need for foot pegs. Eleminates 1 pd. of weight - Ordering the kayak in a lighter lay-up, such as the "Elite" lay-up from NDK. Weight savings appr. 7-9 pds. - Choosing the Clip connection over the nuts-and-bolt connection. Another weight saving of appr. 3-5 pds. If you go used, you can either search the kayaks for sale ads on paddling.net or other for sale boards (connyak.com etc.), or take a look at the left bottom of the front page of www.marcusdemuth.com, where you will find a for-sale-ad for a handsome 3 piece kayak ... 
Bryn from the Australian State Emergency Services, SAS, openly questioning the
3-piece concept. |