Homemade kayak sail completed!

My homemade kayak sail is complete and I just want to thank my wonderful aunt for all her help with it! It looks absolutely beautiful. I have yet to take it for a test run but with all the forethought, I am certain it will sail wonderfully. In the last three days I also added the outriggers and some deck rigging and cleats for the sea anchor/tow rope. I will post about them in the next couple days!

homemade kayak sail mast step — To make the base for the mast step, I filled in a deck button with resin to give me a flat surface on the top of the deck just ahead of the line on either side.

I then drilled the Ronstan tiller extension base (used as a mast step here), into the base I made. You can see the old mast step I had created directly behind it.

This is the snap shackle I used for the mast rigging. Also I added a stainless steel strap eye to the deck for the sheet. The thing on the left is the bilge pump outlet with a plug to keep water from flooding in.

These are the cam cleats I am using for the sheet and the forward line to pull the mast up. On the left is the bilge pump switch with a recessed neodymium magnet and a reed switch below deck.

homemade kayak sail Grayson Cobb — I put grommet forward of the main batten to allow the sail to be reefed. To reef the sail, I drop it onto the deck, tie the line, and pop it back up, a two minute process that will save me in high winds.

Edit: The old mast step with just the mast set on a washer worked better than the tiller extension. I’ll be working on another post updating improvements I could foresee in version 2.0 of my homemade kayak sail and will link here when I am done! Please consider subscribing to keep updated on my future projects.

4 thoughts on “Homemade kayak sail completed!”

Grayson, this is AWESOME. YOU are awesome. Love that you are documenting all of the steps you are taking to build it all. By the way, that sail is HOT.

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Great job! I like to look at what others have done. My homemade sail is a bit different, but it works well. I’d appreciate your comments, you can see it here https://wackypup.blogspot.com/2018/01/how-to-sew-your-own-kayak-sail-for-any.html

Thanks!
Liz

Because it's there

4 thoughts on “Homemade kayak sail completed!”

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Adventures of a medical student

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4 thoughts on “Homemade kayak sail completed!”

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Adventures of a medical student