Having spent a long time searching the internet for a new fishing kayak, I finally made a choice. I was looking for something made of polyethylene, that had a characteristic kayak hull and plenty of below deck stowage. In the back of my mind was also finding something that might be marketable in the UK.
My choice was the C Kayaks Malachite made by GW Industries in South Africa.
http://www.c-kayak.co.za/catalogue_malachite.htm
I decided to place an order and received my shipment just before christmas. The cost of the kayak was £500 and shipping £375 delivered, of course the Queen wanted her bit in the form of duty & vat. Total cost £1000, not cheap but not expensive for a yak.
After unpacking, my first impression was not bad but then the critical eye kicked in and I started to notice things that were a disapointment. After a couple of hours pulling my new toy to pieces, I resigned myself to the fact that I couldn`t really send it back so would have to bring it up to a standard that made me happy, this would involve re-fitting everything, not something you should have to do after spending £1000, but then the yak is only worth £500. Well what do you want for £500.
The main thing I noticed was a mis-alignment of the hull and deck line, most apparent at this point by the rod holder. Now as this is a roto-moulded kayak my first thought was that some plonker had dropped and bent one half of the mold, or even that the mold had been incorrectly tightened up during manufacture. The apparent reason for this mis-alignment is that the Malachite has been modelled from a copy of another kayak, Kaskazi`s Pelican. With this in mind I`ll leave the performance till a later date when a true comparison has been made. I also noticed a few what I call flat spots, one on the deck after the rear hatch and one in the hull below the seat area of the cockpit, these appear to be the result of a lack of support within the construction of the kayak.
Fixtures.
It is quite apparent that the people involved in the manufacture of this fishing kayak have no idea of the importance of good fixtures and the fitting of such.
The strap eyes fitted were only abs plastic, which considering 4 of them were anchor points for the supplied thigh straps didn`t seem a very strong option, add to this the fact they were secured with 10mm self tapping screws and you have the perfect scenario for failure.
Rod holders were the narrow flush mounted type, again fixed with 10mm s/t screws, sealed with silicone but the cut outs looked a little rough. I wonder if they`ve heard of hole saws in South Africa, I`m sure the job would be easier if not neater done with such a modern device.
Drain plug, now this one really got me thinking, are these people purposely setting out to cause distress. Again fixed with the terrible 10mm s/t screws, this time not such a problem, but why a butchered near triangular hole for something that is perfectly round and why the hell is it not sealed, this is fitted in the bow deck and on testing in surf was the point of the most water ingress. The lack of a piece of retaining cord must be an oversight.
The rudder looked OK till a closer inspection revealed how cheap and thoughtless the installation had been.
This fixing with two pieces of bent SS screwed rod was in my mind shoddy and the use of standard nuts shows total disregard.
There is no way this rudder fixing can be secured, tightening it up just distorts the hull. The control lines for the rudder are just drilled through the deck at a convenient place but not sealed, same in the foot well. Pedal control and adjustment worked very well but cannot be lined up with one another.
Carry handles are in the form of two Heath Robinson affairs made up of nylon webbing straps covered with pieces of hose pipe, these in turn are fixed to the deck with two plastic straps bolted
with 5mm SS screws and standard nuts.
The carry handles are fitted at bow and stern, there are no side handles making car topping on your own difficult.
The hatches on the Malachite deck are the rubber gasket type, they fit really well and are water tight with retaining cords fixed to the screws holding the handles. The 6" screw hatch fitted in the foot well forward bulkhead was fixed with the usual 10mm s/t screws and sealed though the screws did not allow for the fixing of the retaining strap to be attached, another oversight.
Having found all these, what I call defects, I made the decision to rectify them and will post my upgrades and rigging at a later date.
I will finish my review by saying, if you are in the market for a fishing kayak but you don`t have the time or ability to totally re-fit it, look somewhere else as C Kayaks Malachite is not a viable option. If the manufacturer could have addressed the mold alignment, which I doubt very much and supplied the yak unfurnished at a lower container load price (currently £270 each), I would have seriously considered supplying them to the UK market fully rigged. Having now seen the yak and knowing a little about it`s origins, I`ll be giving that idea no more consideration.
Mods and rigging the Malachite
I decided the first thing to do was fit a pair of side carry handles. This was going to be an impossible job without the aid of some lepricorn to climb into the gunwale and hold a spanner.
I had a think about the job and came to the conclusion I would need to employ some form of support for the handles and also the strap eyes to anchor the thigh straps to.
A piece of aluminium flat bar would do the trick. I carefully marked out the positions for the handle and strap eyes on a piece 1m long, 30mm wide and 4mm thick.
I drilled holes and tapped a thread into each, for the handles I screwed in a piece of 6mm threaded SS rod and secured them on the reverse side with a nut. With all the holes drilled in the yak, I put the flat bar into position managing to hold it through one of the hatches, then I put on the webbing of the handle followed by the plastic covers. Each end of the handles was then secured with a SS washer and dome nut, a liberal dose of silicone sealant was applied at each hole in the yak.
I then attached the four SS strap eyes fixed with 5mm SS screws. The aluminium flat bar now gave me a solid trouble free foundation to fix other things to the gunwale`s.
While aluminium was on my mind, I came up with the solution for the poorly fitted rudder. I fabricated a bracket to fit tight up in the stern, this allowed for the rudder mounting to be fixed solid with 5mm SS screws. Again this proved to be another handy mod with regard to future rigging.
The lack of structural support causing the flat spot on the rear deck was easily overcome. I warmed the deck with my wife`s hair dryer till I could push the deck up slightly, I then cut two pieces of PVC board to size and braced the deck from the keel of the hull. This was finished off with an application of PVC cement to hold it together.
I replaced the narrow rod holders with new ones from H2o kayaks,
these are made by seadog and in my opinion are the best type for kayaks.
Sealed at the bottom and no fiddley caps. I used a hole saw to make the hole neater, applied silicone and bolted them in with 5mm screws, washers and nyloc nuts.
The drain plug needed sorting out so I ordered a replacement from H2o and fitted it with the 10mm s/t screws I had removed, I also sealed this one. The drain plug comes with it`s own retaining clip and soft sealing washer.
While working on the drain plug it gave me the oppertunity to fit the forward pulley for the anchor trolley. I needed to get this as far forward as possible and this was fixed without the usual bungee, I bolted the pulley solid to the deck with 5mm SS screw and nut but also fitted lock nuts in the pulley frame, spacing the frame just off the deck with a thick SS washer. I managed to hold the nut and washer with a ring spanner and a smear of silicone, it stayed together just long enough to pass the whole lot through the hole for the drain plug and thread the screw.
I then moved my attention on to the aft pulley. Again this needed to be fiited as far back as possible. I cut and shaped a piece of aluminium angle to suit, then drilled it to utilise two of the rudder fixing screws and then bolted on the pulley.
As I wanted two seperate anchor trolleys, I had to fit two further pulleys to the gunwale. Now this is where the aluminium flat bar really helped out, it was just a case of marking out, drilling the holes, tapping the thread and screwing the pulleys in position. I then fixed two clam cleats just off with 10mm s/t screws as trolley locks.
I threaded the pulleys with 6mm paracord tying a SS snap link to one end and a loop in the other. The two ends were brought together with a loop of 5mm bungee cord to take up the slack and ultimately act as shock absorbers. The anchor set up will also have bungee, I`ll explain in a later post.
Back to the rudder, the haul cord needed attention. I again marked a position for a pulley, then drilled and tapped the hole into the aluminium. Thread some 5mm bungee through the pulley and tied on to both ends of the rudder haul with knobs in place. The bungee just affords enough tension to keep things neat.
The only thing left to do was fit a rod holder in the seat well area to allow for easily resting the rod while tackling/baiting up or dealing with a fish.
Sitting in the kayak with my chosen rod holder at hand, I finally settled on a position between my feet and using an extension for the holder. I also fitted a strap eye closer to the seat for the purpose of leashing. These two last items needed strengthening under the floor of the cockpit, this was done by means of an aluminium plate fabricated in much the same way as the flat bar in the gunwales.
First outing.
Having waited some time to get the new yak on the water for some serious paddling, the oppertunity came with a weekend on the North East coast. Saturday saw a few friends and myself out of North bay at Scarborough, the weather was rain with a slight wind and the sea had about a foot of swell so nothing that could not be handled.
Once out on the water I soon got used to the tippy feel of the yak and settled in to paddling. The yak moved through the water with ease which I expected but I was really suprised by how it tracked keeping a straight line even with cross wind, having spent the last couple of years paddling the Big Game and fighting the slightest breeze to keep straight, this yak was a pleasure.
After 20 mins or so, we decided to put a bit of recovery practice in, so I capsized the yak and took the plunge.
On starting my self recovery I was amazed at how the yak came to meet me, with the gunwale below the waterline it made recovery very easy, the only thing needing any thought was how not to go straight over the other side. The narrow beam means that weight shifting suddenly from one side to the other needed to be done with a bit of agile presision, something I`ve grown out of over the years but the riding a bike theory applies to yaking and I managed to stay upright.
After a couple of re-entries we got back to paddling and ventured further from the beach, paddling into the wind, across it and then with it, the yak was behaving itself nicely but it didn`t seem challenging enough so I started a bit of messing about. I flipped over the side and made my way round to the bow, I intended mounting the yak from the bow just to see if it could be done, well maybe on a mill pond with an acrobat but not me, not today. First attempt and I was straight back in, second go and I managed to get up on the bow deck and sat for about 5 seconds, bump from a wave and the sea had got me back in, leave that for another day I thought.
Having seen the pictures taken on the day, courtesy of Andy Elliot, the Malachite seems to be sat a bit low in the water suggesting that my 13 stone may just be a little short of its load carrying ability, if I were to compare it to other s.o.t`s, that may be the case, looking at the first picture with Dave`s sit in sea kayak, both seem to be at the same level so I`m not to concerned. A future test of load carrying will have to take place.
The Sunday of the weekend saw us launch at Flamborough`s North landing. Now this isn`t a place for the faint hearted, the slip is enough to bust your lungs when you are pulling your yak back up.
The forcast was looking good and the weather was perfect. We made our way down the slip and launched on to a calm sea, paddled out of the cove and into a wind of about 5mph, we were heading into the wind and up towards Bempton cliffs. I had put on the thigh straps today, these were supplied with the yak and what a difference they made. Control of the craft was much improved and they also allowed me to deliver more power to my paddle stroke, I will keep them on the yak from now on.
Arriving under Bempton we decided to do a spot of fishing, now the comfort of the BG was begining to be missed. I prefer to fish side saddle, the malachite does not lend itself to this very easily, I felt very vulnerable and decided that for the time being, sat in the seat with my legs over each side was the safer option. Having spent an hour fishing without any sign of fish, we decided to head back down the coast and try our luck near the landing, I stowed my gear and off we went.
I stopped along the way and beached my yak at the bottom of the cliffs on the rocks, by this time the sea had got up a bit and there were 2/3ft waves breaking. I noticed Dave was heading towards me in his Dorado, he took one look at the shore line and promptly turned back out to sea. Definately one advantage poly yaks have over glass yaks is you can beach on rocks.
Once we reached the landing the others carried on with their fishing while I carried on getting to know my yak.
I`ve enjoyed my first couple of days afloat on the Malachite and look forward to many more outings and more new experiences.
The main thing I noticed was a mis-alignment of the hull and deck line, most apparent at this point by the rod holder. Now as this is a roto-moulded kayak my first thought was that some plonker had dropped and bent one half of the mold, or even that the mold had been incorrectly tightened up during manufacture. The apparent reason for this mis-alignment is that the Malachite has been modelled from a copy of another kayak, Kaskazi`s Pelican. With this in mind I`ll leave the performance till a later date when a true comparison has been made. I also noticed a few what I call flat spots, one on the deck after the rear hatch and one in the hull below the seat area of the cockpit, these appear to be the result of a lack of support within the construction of the kayak.
Rod holders were the narrow flush mounted type, again fixed with 10mm s/t screws, sealed with silicone but the cut outs looked a little rough. I wonder if they`ve heard of hole saws in South Africa, I`m sure the job would be easier if not neater done with such a modern device.
There is no way this rudder fixing can be secured, tightening it up just distorts the hull. The control lines for the rudder are just drilled through the deck at a convenient place but not sealed, same in the foot well. Pedal control and adjustment worked very well but cannot be lined up with one another.
with 5mm SS screws and standard nuts.
