: A bungee controlled skeg is much much easier to build, IMO.
: So much easier with a NDK
: style through the deck bungee skeg.

My wife has an NDK style skeg - on an NDK boat. We've spent hours working
on it, but it is still so stiff to operate that it takes both of us (out of
the boat) to get the thing to retract. There's no point having something
that is easy to build but impossible to operate. You only build once, but
you hope to operate many thousands of times. I found my wire-controlled
skeg pretty easy to build, and it operates smoothly (though it is not as
good as the commercial VCP/NorthShore ones, and I notice that they have
further refined their design since they were building the ones I use).
To avoid kinking the wire, you simply avoid believing that you can free
a jammed skeg by using the wire to push. Have a way for a partner to reach
under the boat and have something to pull. I can operate my wire skeg with
one finger and by launching backwards off sand, almost never get it jammed.

Andy