Introduction: Sharked Kayak Trailer

About: Failure is not the opposite of success, it's part of success.

Everybody who likes kayak fishing must have the same big problem: STORAGE.
What to do with the caught fish?
Where to stock rescue stuff, fishing gear & fishing beer?

Just put & fix & wrap it on the kayak? Yeah right. It's a kayak, not a carrier!
Use the kayak's trap? Yeah..., even my drinking bottle doesn't fit in!

And what to do with other fishermen? Everytime I'm on a good spot others come disturbing my karma.
I tried the angry russian accent. They answered with the horn.
I tried the crossbow. They answered with the water canon.

So I taught: why not storing my stuff OUTSIDE the kayak?! Why not carrying it all like a sled?
Inspired by one of my favourite pictures ever - you'll agree - the idea was born to build an insubmersible container.

The yakproof way (or how marrying practicalness & crazyness)

Needs:
- some Alubond-style aluminium composite panels
- some big pvc-pipe
- screws, glue & duct tape

Step 1: Sharky's Fin

Tape two pieces of alubond together with duct tape.
Repeat.
Design the fin. Mine's more than 3 feet at the base, corresponding to a shark of about 33 feet (same as the biggest shark ever caught, in Iceland).

Cut it out with a circular saw to obtain two the same fins (to cut it out correctly without scattering: put a piece of plywood under the panels).
Round the edges.
Drill tenthousand holes in the sides - no more no less.
Glue a piece of small diameter pvc-pipe between them, on the place of the joint.
Prepare some polyester-rope.
Glue the edges.
'Sew' the sides together.
Rivet the four prepared 'L'-alu-pieces aka fixations to the body you'll build later.
Foam the inside.
Duct tape the whole.
Ready for assembling!

Step 2: Sharky's Keel

The fin is quite heavy, so a counterweight in form of a keel is needed.
Same concept, different assembling.
No sewing, just a piece of small alu-pipe and a lot of auto-drilling screws.
Rivet the same L-pieces on the upside.
Add two round-shaped profiles on the downside (those will be used fo a lead-filled pipe).
Add a steel bar in the inside - air is out, weight is in.
Foam the space left on the inside.
Powertape the outside.
Ready for assembling!

Step 3: Sharky's Body

Just a 7inch piece of pvc-pipe & two covers, glued together with pvc-cement (that's a huge amount of storage space!).

Step 4: Drill & Screw

Use no plates, but alu rods in the inside of the tube for more yakproofness.
Pre-drill the rods, insert screws, tape together, put the rods in place in the inside of the tube, bolt them on the outside and srew finn & keel in place.
Easy to mantle, easy to dismantle.

Step 5: Put on That Weight

Never said it would be a goldfish. Add weight to the keel for more stability.
Just another tube, filled with lead. Lots of lead.

Step 6: Shark You Go

An then, one summer morning, time for sharky's first swim.
There was some wind.
His belly was empty (and thus filled with air).
And so he bumped like a wild horse in a bee swarm.

Not exactly the right behaviour of a kayak container.

So time for some recommendations:
- his belly needs more weight to get it all stable: gear, crushed ice, beer, whatever
- the fin is - definitely - a bit too large (too much weight and too much wind capture)

More weight means more power needed to get the kayak moving.
So I think I'll make a smaller fin. Half as big will still be impressive - it will still keep other fishermen away from my fishing ground, whooha!

This one will be mounted on my car, probably...

So:
- we need a lighter fin
- we also need a more 'aquadynamic nose' to led it flow more smoothly to the water
- AND I'll fix at least two traps on the upper side of the body for more accessibility

Thanx you folks for whatching!

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