Thought I should introduce my little yak project, “Little Zen”, since its coming along nicely, a 2017 Hobie Sport with the 180 v2 drive, purchased new unsold inventory earlier this year. A shout out to Brian at Strickly Sail, Cincinnati. Great local Hobie dealer, hooked me up with a last year special and the color I wanted to boot!
This is my first attempt at posting pics and I’ll try to offer some explanation as I go, but feel free to ask or critique anything. In anticipation of questions why anyone would do all this to a 9 1/2 foot yak, I’ll give you my first answer, it’s my Hobie!
First up the battery box I made, Plano Guide Series, waterproof with Nacqua 10Ah battery wired to the YakPower SAE system with power ports on the box and stern. Yak/Powers OEM $100 box seemed well made, but too big for Little Zen.
And you may notice the 4” half-turn hatch I installed to make wiring and mounting access a little easier.
The BurleyPro SideBro and 1” Ram ball mount for the Lowrance with Yak Attack rail, not to be confused by the YAK/POWER 5-way SAE switch panel visible. This hides nicely behind a 3400 Plano. I was using the 1.5” Ram ball, but too big, bulky and the 1” sits nicely and holds the Elite, seems fine.
I am curious how or if anyone is strapping their sonar units down, or leashed for extra safety? I see no way to mount anything on the unit itself.
“Midship” deck lights, handy for that after dark ride about. There are only two small button lights, one each side, the rest are reflections.
And a few other things but I’m running out of time for the first post. Here’s a last few views of the YakPower green LED light kit; Super bright SMD 5050 20” strips, IP68 fully submersible.
I plan to do underwater lights near future... Hope you enjoyed and feel free to ask any questions.
~ Zen
