Mike, let me ask a beginner question. Why are you adding the skeg to the Auk and what handling improvements are you expecting?
Is it mainly to combat wind?
Your craftsmanship is superb.

Ian

: 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.