Follow along the consecutive posts to this thread for more pictures and descriptions.

After paddling the Great Auk for it’s first year I determined it would benefit from a skeg or rudder. During the build I had made provisions to add a rudder if needed but after some research I determined I like the skeg idea better. I had played around with some pie shaped tape-on skegs last fall that helped me determine size and location. After researching several skeg designs and builds I concluded a few things.

What I wanted:
Something closer to a foil shaped fin rather than a pie wedge for reasons of less drag and better looks
Simplicity both for the skeg and control box
Light weight
Try to eliminate the kinked cable syndrome

I really liked the idea of a bungee tensioned skeg that always deploys down and then a rope pull to retract it. What I didn’t like about this is the line through the hull and routed on top to the cockpit. Along with this comes the rope cleat that must sit proud of the deck somewhere. I tried to think of a way to route the line inside the hull to the cockpit but still had trouble coming up with a good idea for a line cleat. I had some ideas but they were becoming complicated.

I already had some 1/8” stainless steel cable and started by searching for some control box parts. The more I fiddled with this the more I hated it. The cable was heavy. Cutting it frayed the ends. Trying to figure out the terminations, attachments, fitting, tubes and slides all seemed overboard. Not only that but then it can kink and require replacing.

My solution was to use a carbon fiber pushrod in a Teflon sheath. Its strong, lightweight and very small diameter. The one thing it doesn’t like to do very well is bend though. So what I tried to do was design the skeg shape to reduce the amount of bend required to deploy the skeg. This resulted in a bell crank like skeg whereas the control rod attaches to the vertical skeg lever at the furthest point away from the pivot point. This required the skeg box to go all the way to the upper hull skin and has a few benefits. It allows the pushrod to remain along the top of the hull and not be in the way or be snagged, it’s much stronger and stiffens the hull once attached top and bottom, and can be built as a tunnel vs a pocket.

So on to the build,
See the next post.

Here is a pic of the Great Auk from last year.