| B.Y.O.K. : Bring Your Own Kayak The Ups and Downs of traveling with a sectional Kayak
Re-inserting bulkhead of stern hatch on South coast of Australia, Jan 2007
"While a three-piece does give you some wonderful options for traveling,
the price is a few gray hairs and some cold, hard, cash."
Greg Stamer
The Concept Traveling to the far corners of the world with a regular 1 one piece kayak is either impossible, or you will depend on the highly expensive services of a shipping company. If you are lucky enough to find a shipping company to transport your 18 feet box, you will face an invoice of over $2,000 for the one way shipping, and the possibility that the kayak may never make it to the destination, no matter what the shipping company promised you (see our experiences to have our kayaks shipped from NYC Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina, an experience I do not intend to do twice). The idea of lugging around 3 over sized pieces of parcel halfway around the globe all the way to Perth/Australia, or Patagonia/Chile does not look very appealing either at first glance. While traveling with a 3-piece kayak there will be many moments where you will feel like Klaus Kinski as "Fitzcarraldo" as he moves his ship over a mountain. 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.
Valley Nordkapp 3-piece kayak
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.
Now a 2-piece kayak. 2nd incident, now the bow section came off, Western Australia, Feb 2007 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.
Photo: Simon Osborne/Sea Kayaking Cornwall
- 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.
- You will quickly become an expert in fiberglass repairs (due to your accumulating experience fixing your 3-piece kayak)
The Construction
Kayak manufacturers are using 3 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.
 The 4 nuts and bolts, as seen from inside the front bulkhead
 The tiny seam, with a stripe a black window sealant inbetween
- One of 2 connection methods Nigel Dennis offers in his sectional kayaks: 2 Clips on top of the hull of the kayak, and 2 bolts connecting the bulkheads close to the bottom of the kayak.
- Nigel Dennis, like Rockpool, also offers a clip-only connection, with 2 clips on top and 2 clips on the bottom of the kayak.
Clip-only, w/clips on top & bottom of kayak
Bolts or Clips? Some Pros and Cons
Advantages of Valley's Nuts-and-Bolts Connection:
- A simple, solid, invisible connection which is pleasing to the eye, and which needs little maintenance.
- Very sturdy.
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 wet hatches. - Nuts have to be re-tightened from time to time. Despite the nuts featuring plastic inserts which should prevent slippage, the nuts do come loose after a while, thus letting water into the compartments, - Longer assembly time of appr 15-25 minutes, involving yoga-alike positions to reach and turn the bolts inside the hatches. Some 3-piece assemblies with the nuts and bolt construction require a 2nd person to hold the bolt on the other end (to prevent the bolt from turning). - 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 states some advantages of the clip-only connection in one simple sentence 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."
Other advantages of the clips-only (clips both on top and bottom) connection:
- Simple, fast assembly time of less than 1 minute.
- No tools needed. No nuts, bolts or tools can be lost.
- 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.
- Truly watertight connection since bulkheads are not drilled.
Some 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 piece of duct tape over the clips.
- Clips may come loose under extreme stress, such as bow contact with the ground when landing in (dumping) surf.
- Just like the nuts and bolts, the clips do come loose and have to re-adjusted from time to time, sometimes even daily.
There are currently 5 manufacturers I know of who do 3-piece sea kayaks: Valley Canoe Products (VCP), Rockpool, Nigel Dennis Kayaks (NDK), Nimbus, and Easy Rider Kayaks.
You may also 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 (bottom left) on ferry Puerto Montt to Puerto Chacabuco, Chile, 2005
Patagonia/Chile Trip (2006)
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 (2007)
Perth (Australia) to New York City: Free ($0.00) on Qantas Airlines
Ireland Trip (2007)
High Speed Ferry Dublin to Holyhead (Wales): Free ($0.00)
Falklands Expedition (2009)
$225.00 for the one-way shipping of a one-piece Explorer by sea freight from Southhampton (UK) to the Falkland Islands with Darwin Shipping Ltd. (no return shipping costs since kayak stayed in the Falklands).
Tierra Del Fuego Expedition (2010)
$710.00 by UPS from NYC to Punta Arenas, Chile, one way. No return shipping costs since kayak stayed in Caleta Falsa, Argentina.
 
Carved foam pieces to protect the ends of the connections.
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Transporting boats to faraway places usually involves logistical challenges, like
moving mountains.
The Praxis On the water, the 3-piece kayak performs just like a regular kayak. To
view the footage of the 3-piece Explorer riding the surf last weekend
at the Jersey shore close to Belmar, NJ crank up your computer speakers
to the max and click here. 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 manovering 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?
Some airline or ferry crews are flexible when the kayak isn't
"The biggest issue with 3 piece kayaks is moving the bags. One has a
sense of 19th century Victorian era expeditions with the camel trains
and porters, merely by moving the bags from the car and through the
doors to the ticket counter."
Rob G.
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 "Elite" lay-up with a clip-only connection (clips on top and bottom): 56 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 then 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 you the copy of this DIY workshop for $4.00 + shipping.
See www.seakayakermag.com for contact info anf for Sea Kayaker magazines back issue ordering details.
Purchasing a 3-Piece Kayak New made-to-order 3 piece kayaks run appr. between $3,900 (Nigel Dennis Explorer) to up to $4,900 (Valley Canoe Products), pending on the chosen customized options such as a rope or wire skeg (wire skeg with slider control mounted in stern section) etc. When ordering a new 3-piece kayak it is propaply 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 (eliminates appr. 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.
- Pass on the built-in compass, and use a tiny hand held compass you slide into your deck mounted map case instead (another 1 pd of weight savings).
- 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 classified boards (connyak.com etc.), but it may be somewhere between difficult to impossible to find a used 3-piece. 
Bryn from the Australian State Emergency Services (SAS), openly questioning the Clip-Top-Bolt-Bottom connection 3-piece concept, after retrieving the broken kayak in dunes of a fairly unaccessible stretch of coast on the west coast of Australia
Folding Kayak vs. Sectional Kayak
Owners of Feathercraft or Klepper folding kayaks point out that a folding kayak might be the lighter, easier approach of traveling with a kayak since the entire folding kayak can be packed in only one single bag. An advantage over a 3-piece kayak, where you travel with (and have to pay for) 3 oversized bags ...? Wrong! Since in both cases, no matter if 3 piece or folding kayak, you will travel with the same amount of 3 bags. The reason is you always have to bring you gear:
- Folding Kayak: My camping gear, paddles, and kayak kit etc. (barely) fit into 2 (two) oversized bags. Add a folding kayak to these 2 bags, you end up taking a total of 3 bags to the airport.
- 3-Piece Kayak: If you travel with a 3-piece kayak, you will be able to store your entire camping and kayak kit in not only the 2 hatch compartments (bow and stern section), but also in the cockpit (paddles). This eliminates the need for you to bring any additional bags with you, thus ending up again with 3 pieces of luggage (if slightly oversized compared with the 3 bags when traveling with a folding kayak).
3-Piece Explorer with kayak and camping kit packed inside, Perth Airport, Australia
Since in both cases you end up with 3 oversized pieces of luggage, the 3-Piece kayak offers the advantage of a sturdier hull and a sturdier kayak less prone to damage to the canvas hull of a folding kayak, less assembly time and fewer parts such as wooden or metal ribs, bolts and nuts you might loose, damage, or forget at home  Slider skeg control in stern section.
Valley Nordkapp Pic: John Harris
Punta Arenas, Chile: 18 feet one piece kayak (top of truck), and a 18 feet 3-piece kayak (being loaded). Freight from NYC to Punta Arenas for the 3-piece kayak was less than 1/3 compared to the one-piece kayak due to less volume (dimensional weight),
despite that the box of the 3-piece kayak weighed more.
Voila! 6,000 Miles later, the kayak as arrived un-damaged in Chile, and ready to be launched in the Straits of Magellan | |