Good Day Andy,

You can be the first to try my idea! I was at one time considering a retractable skeg, and my idea was to use a bicycle gear shift lever and cable to raise and lower the skeg. The lever would indicate the position of the skeg, and if it did not have enough range of movement then you could use a cam between the cable and the rudder to lengthen the throw.

Also Seal-Line (yeah, I know, these guys need to give me some money for all this publicity I'm giving them) makes a thing called a "trim tab" that is used to lock your rudder in position. You could use it to raise and lower the skeg instead. It mounts on the deck of the kayak and uses a pulley and cable system. You set the rudder and then lock the tab to hold it in place. You could rig it as a downhaul mechanism that locks in the desired position. The tab moves with the rudder so it doubles as a rudder position indicator, or in your case skeg indicator.

Just a thought,

Malcolm