Paddle Holder Fix

I noticed that other people were having problems with the paddles coming out of the paddle holders and I've had the same problem too. Every time a wave catches the paddle the right way the paddle holders don't have enough strength to hold on and the paddle goes adrift. Another thing I noticed is that no matter how far forward you push the rear starboard side paddle, the rear portion of the paddle is always submerged a bit. While there's no fix for the submerged paddle ( or at least RoadRunner hasn't posted it yet ) I've come up with a fix for the paddle holders.



At the top of the paddle holder there is a hole cut out but as you can see at the bottom it's just a sold piece. I thought if only there was a hole there then I could run a shock cord ball tie and keep the paddle in place. So I drilled me a hole.



Now that we have two holes on the paddle holder we can use shock cord ball ties to hold the paddle in place when not in use.





I bought these at Walmart for about 5 bucks. They were a little too long though so I needed to make a slight modification.



I guess they didn't think people were going to need to make these different lengths so the ball is full closed with the knot inside. No problem though, just break out Mr. Drill again.



Now that there's a hole just pull the shock cord out with a needle nose and knot it how you'd like. All that needs to be done is run the shock cord through the holes and you've got yourself a tightly secured paddle.

Good idea! Where'd you get the holders? My Hobie only has molded nubs with a mid-point shock cord retainer.

I believe that that's the holder on an inflatable.

Yeah it seems that the holder on the inflatables are different from the solid hulls. As an update, I've taken my i14t out since the paddle holder modification and it works great. The paddles stay in place during waves that use to knock them right off.