mvc00134 wrote:
When I pedal, the kayak starts to veer to the left and I have to compensate by moving the rudder steering lever right. Once I stop pedaling and "coast", the kayak starts to self-correct and track to the direction indicated by the steering lever as it slows down. Start pedaling again and it pulls to the left again. It also felt like the kayak wasn't aligned parallel to the direction of travel.
There are a couple of possibilities:1. Your fins may be biased to one side. To check this, hold the Drive upside down by the crank arms, with the front of the Drive pointing toward you so you're looking at the fins head-on. The fins should be straight up if the pedals are exactly together. If the fins are slightly split, that is no big deal, but if they are both leaning to one side slightly, the Drive's thrust could be off centerline. To correct this, you would ease cable tension for each fin on one side and take it up by the same amount on the opposite side until the fins are in-line with the crank arms.
2. With the Drive inserted in the hull and the hull upside down (perhaps on a pair of saw horses) look at the axis of the fins compared with the axis of the hull. It's rare but possible that this could be marginally off. In this case, there isn't much you can do about it. The rotomolding process provides some small individual variation in the boats during the extraction and cooling process that is unavoidable because of shrinkage. The operational result is negligible.
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At one point in trying to troubleshoot, I raised the rudder to see what would happen and the kayak started to do a very tight spin to the left (as if the rudder was down and fully turned left). I don't know how reliable this test is, since I also got it to turn to the right sometimes if I raised the rudder while turning right.
As jbernier says, the boat always turns left when you raise the rudder. This is a feature of the Twist N Stow rudder. I use this feature when coming to shore, pulling the rudder up just before landing to present the starboard side to the shore, which is where I exit the boat. Very handy!You should know that all the Mirage Drive Hobies are directionally unstable in forward motion because they have no skeg. They will turn in either direction depending on the initial input; the shorter the boat, the greater the effect. The boats are directionally stabilized by the rudder alone. Not having a skeg gives the rudder more authority to turn the boat so you get better handling. That's also why the large sailing rudder works so much better than the small rudder. This is also why the boats don't track well without the rudder down and locked. Note that all Hobie paddling boats may look similar but they all have a skeg for better tracking.
To that end, It's always good to check your directional rudder lines -- they should be taut (but not tight) when the rudder is down, locked and pointed aft. If there is slack in that position, the boat can wander, causing frequent corrections. Since the hulls expand and shrink slightly due to temperature, it's good to check this during the seasons as temperatures change. It's easy to adjust the line on the appropriate side with a Phillips head screwdriver. The rudder line itself is made of Spectra, quite strong and very length-stable.
