: I've made seveal kayaks with rudders using my home made foot brace steering
: system. built basically like my standard wooden foot braces, See Nick's
: book, I make the foot peddle portion rotate to control the rudder.

hi eric

i originally thought the sealine footpeg basic idea was the first along this line, but then noticed yours tucked away in nicks book all along. I sure wonder if thats where they got the idea from originally. alex ferguson was pointing out that there are a bunch of variations used in new zealand as well. those systems use a loosely similar approach as the sealine.

one way to make yours more like the newzealand types would be to eliminate all the hooks except the one closest the seat, but make it angle shaped to become a jam fitting for the line. Then take the line shown in your picture, make it longer and only tie one end of the line to the brace runner and bring the other end toward you, around thru the jammer(hole only so doesn/t come free),back to the back of the track next to the bulkhead, around a pulley or fat loop or rod fitting and tie on the back of the brace runner. So the brace runner is on one continuous loop going from near the seat to the bulkhead.

then conceptually the bracerunner slides back and forth along the track on its continuous line loop and you can just jam it anywhere, using the same fitting near you all the time no matter how long or short your feet are, and no line is free and the brace doesn/t move or float back when the cockpit is full of water and you are fumbling around w/ yr feet trying to get back in etc etc.

the jam most likely is best to angle to the front but could just a easily be vertical as well. Could even use something similar to those barrel locks on the line instead. Or a jamclamp. or a wedge. or even a typical jam fitting.

-mick