I have made a nice cage for the airbag to go in..or atleast I think so. I put the bags in and I blow them up and it looks perfect, it is staying put and fits just right. Well after doing a few rolls/getting water in the boat the bags will try to get out the end. There is not way that they are going to get out but the problem is that they will make some gaps by moving the ropes around alittle. I did not have my camera with me at the pool tonight but below are some pictures of how the bags mangled things. I tryed running the rope through the two tie downs at the end of each bag but they will still shift around so much so that the corners of each bag will push above the gunwales when there is water in the boat. I cannot seem to figure it out., below are some pictures of how I have it tied down.
Thses three pictures are of my rigging after the pool. You can see how the bag shifted down and made some sizeable gaps in my netting. You can also see where I tried running the rope through the tie downs on the bag, that helped a little but it still made some sizeable shifts. Toward the bow you can see the gap on the right side where the bag has shifted down and to the left side of the boat.
These two are of how things look when I air up the bags, you see some sizeable gaps on the sides that allows the bags to shift when water is introduced.
This last one is of my netting job. there are some gaps on the sides but I have seen outfitting of other boats on the internet that also have these types of gaps. Do I need to spread out the net to better grab the sides of the air bags? Also how tight do these ropes need to be? My goal is to make it that the bags will not shift around in use but so far all of my attempts have failed.
I attached a picture of how the Zephyr looks factory outfitted, maybe this helps. It seems to work well.
[img]http://www.bushpaddler.de//images_share/IMG_2323_k.jpg[/img]
Try to fix the bag in the bow / stern because airbags have the tendency to move to the middle of the boat.
Florian
Last edited by bushpaddler on Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Do those NRS air bags have grommets in the corners? I typically use those to pull the corners together and down to the anchor in the middle, that tends to immobilize them pretty well.
It has always been my understanding that Mike Yee (who knows at least one or two things about OC outfitting) takes the position that anchoring bags in a boat through grommets to immobilize them is bad for the bags (shorten life through tearing) He instead notes that caging the sch*t out of them allows them to move around and still provide adequate water displacement. Based on OC outfitting I have done in the past, even the factory Zephyr caging could be laced zig-zagged more to make the holes between the lacing smaller. Further, M.Y. always takes his bags out of his boats when he travels to avoid excessive wear and risk of loss of a partially or fully deflated bag. I will try to take pictures of the caging I did in my new Prelude (courtesy of a second-generation TEAM etc plate.) More caging, more inflate, less water.
If you want to see pictures and I'll email them, as I have not yet mastered the whole attaching photos to messages thing on this board yet.
J. "Not Elvis" Robbins
j.robbins at boatmanandmagnani dot com
PS: I WAS THE ONE. THE ONE WHO DID IT. The one who bought that Hydra Duet off of Ebay. It might be at an armada this year, if I don't choose my hottie sister-in-law and the Noah C2 instead.
I just outfitted my new boat with Mikey's kit and followed the demo on his website. It works well and will not let the bags out of the cage. It looks like the zig-zag pattern that holds the large end of your bags in is too close to the center. Check out Mikey's Demo page. I think that will help.
j.robbins wrote:It has always been my understanding that Mike Yee (who knows at least one or two things about OC outfitting) takes the position that anchoring bags in a boat through grommets to immobilize them is bad for the bags (shorten life through tearing)
Makes sense, notice that he does have a cord that pulls the corner loops (the Voyageur bags in his gallery don't have grommets) together - I think that helps keep the corners from poking out and escaping the "cage".
[Edited to clarify :]
Note : the "corner loops" are not secured to the cage or to an anchor, but to each other, eliminating the "poking out bit". That should not cause much stress on the bag or loop/grommet. Mitigating that even further, it looks like he used shock cord to tie the corners together.
Last edited by sbroam on Fri Feb 09, 2007 8:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I really appreciate all the ideas. I was thinking that the lacing was too close to the center but I wanted to get some second opinions before I spend more time on doing that. Also do I need to really torque down on the end lacing or will having it just tight do the job.
The NRS bags do have grommets however I really did not want to use them as J Robbins pointed out it can be harmful to them in the long run.
Doug here is a link to my write-up. Right now I am working on designing a printed circuit board where you just plug in the pumps, switch and battery; and not have to deal with making the circuits on the board.
Another idea given to me was to use fishnetting on the end if I cannot get lacing to work. Either way I think I will be able to find a solution and get back on the water.
