No matter how careful you are, if you paddle a boat with a retractable skeg you will eventually have to un jam it.  Turning the boat upside down to slide a butter knife along the skeg usually just allows the stone or pebble to go further into the skeg case.  Holding the boat up while working underneath is difficult in the field.  And what if you discover the jammed skeg while on the water?  I drill a small hole through the bottom corner of the skeg and add a doubled loop of 50 lb + test monofilament fishing line with a couple of plastic beads on it.  The loop is long enough to dangle below the fully retracted skeg.  A second paddler can come up alongside you in the water, reach under your boat, find the beads, and pull your skeg free. 

 

Those toggles weren't put there just to help you carry the boat.  For heavy water, you want to be able to easily grab the toggle at the bow or stern of a boat.  Boats with toggles very  close to the stern or bow ends are easier to grab in the water than those with toggles located inward of the bow or stern.  However, toggles out at the ends ot the boat tend to often flop and drag in the water.  You can make a loop of bungee material that will slip around the toggle to hold it in place for day to day easy and quieter paddling, but that slips off the toggles for heavier water conditions. 

 

 

 

I paddle with a greenland paddle and sometimes I want to be able to either secure the paddle I am using to do something with two hands.  I also want to be able to take along a greenland style non-take-apart paddle as a spare paddle.  Here are some options for paddle parks on bow and stern decks that have worked for me.

 

Cape Charles Sea Kayak

 

For deck lines to be effective, you have to be able to grab them.  If the deck line lies flat against the deck of the boat it is difficult to grab the line.  This is particularly true if you are wearing gloves or are in conditions where the lines are freezing to the deck.  On my modified CLC boat the decks are very flat, and the lines laid right against the decks.  Wearing gloves, you really had to concentrate to pick them off the deck to get a hold of the kayak.  I solved the problem by adding wooden oak beads available from a craft store to the lines.  The beads, only about 3/4 inch in diameter, hold the line off the deck and allow me to get my fingers under the lines even when wearing coldwater gloves.

 

 

 

I store my kayaks up underneath the deck of my townhouse.  To get the kayaks up to the bottom of the deck, which is about 9 feet above my head, I put together a system using a boat trailer winch, some screw eyes, pulleys from the hardware store, and some rope. 

 

I used to just stack my paddles in a corner of the stairwell.  Until that day when all the paddles and I took a quick trip to the bottom of the stairs!  I took a piece of 2 inch by 1 inch wood, and added pairs of dowels to the wide side of the wood.  The dowels are 2.5 inches long, and 3/8 inch diameter.  Each pair of dowels are 2.25 inches between dowels.  The different pairs are 3 inchs apart.  This allows me to place the shaft of a paddle between the dowels of each pair, with the dowels being set close enough to trap the loom of the paddle and hold it a couple inches off the floor.  The threee inch spacing between dowel pairs allows me to store greenland paddles side by side neatly.  If you are still using euro blades, you'll need to move the pairs of dowels further apart, thereby storing less paddles - another reason to switch to greenland paddles!