Kayaking Gear Maintenance: Beginning Kayaking Lesson

Video Transcript

"Welcome to Expert Village. My name is Lloyd Reeves, seven times national USCA and ACA Canoeing and Kayak champ. Today we are going to talk a little bit of gear maintenance. The most important thing to remember if you are in salt water life is touch and if you are in fresh water it is easy. Fresh water you pretty much just wipe things down and keep the spots off. Salt water is a whole another story. You got to rinse everything off. Start with your paddle. If you are using a nice wing paddle if you have an adjuster you will pop this loose. You want to get fresh water in everything and make sure there is no sand left in there. If you are using a spray skirt the salt water will make it deteriorate before too fast; you got to hose it off. The wooden kayak is always nice to get that cleaned off. All your deck lines or bungees; salt water will ruin these fast. If you want to keep them firm, you have to rinse them off with fresh water. If you have a rutter, all these moving parts should be washed with fresh water. They also have a little bungee for the kick up. These cables are stainless steel but you can still get salt water collected in there and you need to check these cables by pulling them part way out once in a while to ensure that there is no corrosion going on there. If you have a cable lock-up, it makes steering kind of awkward. Hatch covers same thing. The seat assembly on this one has a nice foam pad for doing distance. I have to clean that off or it will rot off on me and I’ve got foot boards and cables under here that need to be cleaned out. Bulk heads are fairly water tight so I don’t have to clean the inside out too much. I will hose it over and tip it and get the rest of water out but if you are a salt water paddler you’ve got your work cut out for you. "