This was an eye-opener overnight kayaking trip (shake down) at Magnolia Beach, Texas, and glad I did it. I had considered just taking off to Brownsville, but this little test was the best thing I could have done to catch a lot of things with the kayak on its first fully loaded undeway excursion…
Namely:
- The kayak takes on a ton of water in light chop
- Kayaks can sink!
- Just because the kayak can hold 500lbs, doesn’t mean you should max it out
- There is less space than I imagined
- The kayak outriggers are worth their weight in gold
- Despite nay-sayers, the wind does NOT push the kayak all over the place
- Pants will be necessary (sun exposure)
- Just because something works on land, doesn’t mean it will on the water
- EVERYTHING will get wet, use baggies and dry bags
The shell beaches of Texas are harder than you imagine. The first good thing to come from this kayak trip shakedown was realizing that I forgot the air mattress. I tried sleeping on the hard ground anyway. I woke up at 2AM to the sound of Dolphins swimming by, one was splashing a lot and probably catching a midnight snack in the bright full-moon light. They quickly calmed down and then you could just hear blow holes, pretty cool. My back was hurting from the hard ground, so I moved to the back seat of the truck and slept until about 6AM when the rooster started crowing across the street.
I set the kayak up the evening before, full setup time was about 1.5 hours. As the sun was rising, I looked over everything and made sure I didn’t miss anything.
The kayak is a LOT heavier than I imagined at the start of this thing. I know I made it look easy, but as soon as I tried to move the kayak I immediately thought “oh man, how am I gonna drag this up a bank or more than 30 feet on a flat land?” I’ve given it considerable thought, and I am basically hoping there will be enough flat stretches that I can easily get to shore on a beach or soft bank. I have decided to also bring some extra rope/line, in case I have to leave the kayak in the water and tie it off to a tree/rock/anchor.
Shoving off with the kayak was a breeze at this beach. It was the first time using the kayak outriggers and I have to say, they made a heck of a difference, I had zero trouble getting in and out of the kayak.
Once underway, I had a little fumbling around with the controls but got the motor spinning and headed in the right direction. As soon as the boat picked up just a little speed, the small waves came over the bow one after another, and I was a little concerned, but thought the hatch would keep the water out.
Less than 100 yards out and I felt something was wrong. I wasn’t exactly sure how much water was on the deck when I pushed off (too much going on), but didn’t think it was covering the floor. Within minutes though the deck was covered and the motor felt sluggish. Water still coming over the bow, I decided to head back and figure out what was up on the beach. As soon as I turned the boat around everything was calm, then I realized that yes, water was probably being taken on at a significant rate. Was it just from the bow waves, or could there be a crack in the bottom? Get the kayak back to land was my only concern at that point.
I made it back without issue, determined it was not a crack, but probably just bow wave water. The water was drained and there was probably about 6-8 gallons total (50 ish pounds plus lost displacement). Incrementally longer trips went on for about the next 6 hours. Each time back onshore checking the water level inside.
So, the bow waves are an issue that needs addressing, either seal the hatch better, prevent the water from ever getting on the bow, or get a bilge pump. Really the only three options.
Everything else was minor. Pull cables didn’t work as expected. Forgot some odds and ends. Learned that not all ziplock bags are created equaly, I’m now partial to Heafty… I think.
I got to see how the solar panels would do, and they went positive about 10:15 and provided solid power for the remainder of the day. I’m confident they’ll provide enough power to get me through an 8 hour day in full sunshine. Anything less than full sun will require adjustments to speed and that will affect range.
The plan was to take two 100Ah batteries at a total weight of 50lbs. I need to cut some weight though, all the gear in the back half of the boat was sitting in a half inch to an inch of water for the entire day. So, I’m thinking I’ll just take one battery which reduces my total watt storage to 1280 watts. That’s enough to run for 5 hours at a speeed setting of 6, which is still very healthy. You can see the chart below for Amp usage at different throttle settings. The biggest concern is a loss of redundancy. If the battery fails, I’m reliant solely on the panels to provide power through the charge controller. I’ll have to run at reduced speed and only in day light, or paddle. I would also lose the ability to run the water maker as it needs about 90 Amps and the panels can’t provide more than about 26.
| Speed | Amps | Watts | Speed (mph) |
| 1 | 0.5 | 6 | 0.1 |
| 2 | 1.4 | 20 | 0.5 |
| 3 | 3 | 40 | 1 |
| 4 | 6 | 74 | 1.5 |
| 5 | 9.5 | 140 | 2.1 |
| 6 | 14.5 | 220 | 2.6 |
| 7 | 20.5 | 270 | 2.9 |
| 8 | 28 | 360 | 3.2 |
| 9 | 36 | 470 | 3.6 |
| 10 | 43 | 555 | 3.8 |
Consideration was given to two 50Amps batteries, but the space requirement would be about the same, and the weight difference would only be about 14 pounds. If I lost one of those, I still wouldn’t be able to run the water maker without damaging the battery. So, a single 100AH it will be. I’ll keep a healthy reserve of water at all times, 4 liters in bladders is the plan. And then keep the 1/2 gallon jug as my primary, filling as needed.
That’s about it, again, so happy I did the shake-down, these are things that will make the trip much more manageable… and safe! Next post should be day one, pushing off from Port Isabelle, stay tuned!
Going foward, these blog posts will more like highlights of each day or a couple days at a time with the intent of coming back to use them as memory joggers and flesh them out post-trip.
Here was the tracking of the kayak from the shake down trip at Magnolia Beach, Texas. The tracker did okay, updating about every 10-15 minutes as expected.