New One Man Boat

[yoderjac]

I think I'm going to get rid of the YakAttack Switchblade. It works pretty well but there are a few issues. First, it is a bit of a pain for entry and exit of the boat. I can kind of fold it out of the way some, but not completely. At higher speeds, it has some movement. I did notice that one side of my SI is darker than the other. This could be caused by multiple issues, but one of them is that the transducer on the switchblade is not quite deep enough. It is intended for a kayak, not an inflatable.

So, I started working on a design for a transducer pole. While this pole won't need to rotate like the one I made for Megalive 2, it will need to slide vertically. I think the best place to attach it is to the oar locks. I started working on it today. I had some 1x1x1/8 square tube scraps. I plan to use them as back brackets to secure the same 1 1/4" pvc conduit I used for the outer pipe on the Megalive 2 pole. Putting the square tube inside the oarlocks and the pipe horizontally outside, I plan to simply bolt them together to hold the pipe in place. I'll then use an elbow and Tee fitting to get the Tee mounted vertically just outside the inflation chamber. I'll then use the same 1" PVC conduit I used for the inner pole of the Megalive 2 pole. My plan is to pin it so I can change the depth of the transducer and stow it by pinning it well out of the water.

I grabbed the fittings and bolts on the way home from church this morning. I got part of it done, but the bolts I got were a half inch too small. When I get back to lowes and get the right size bolts and start the first steps, I'll take a couple pictures.

If this is successful, the pole will be more stout than the switchblade and allow for greater depth while being out of my road for entry and exit.

 

[yoderjac]

I got the bolts, so here is a picture of the first step:

Here is a picture with the elbow and Tee:

It is not cemented in place yet, but it give you an idea of what it will look like.

Unrelated to this mod, the electric pump I have is a SeaMax and it is setup to plug into a cigarette outlet. The parts came in, so I hooked up a cigarette outlet to a trolling motor plug. This will allow me to simply unplug the trolling motor and plug in the pump when needed so I don't have to open up the battery box and use alligator clips.

 

[yoderjac]

I made a bit more progress this morning. The fixed outer pipe sections have all been glued in place. In this picture you see the inner pole inserted.

I used the trailer as a proxy for the water level. I'm sure the water level will be slightly above that. I made the inner post tall enough that I can drop the transducer about a foot deep. I'm sure that is much further and I will need to to remove any issues. I doubt I'd ever need to run it more than 6" deep, and for safety purposes I doubt I will. When I put it in the stowed position, that pole will really stick up a lot, so once I get it in the water and test it out, I'll probably cut off the top of the pole to reduce the adjustment to just what I need.

 

[yoderjac]

I finished up the mounting pole for the 2D/DI/SI transducer this morning. I removed it from the boat and put it in a vise so I could test all the settings. Here it is in the deepest setting:

The next picture shows it in the shallowest operating position:

The picture below shows it in the stowed position

The final pic shows it mounted back on the boat in the stowed position:

 

[yoderjac]

In order to launch and load the boat, I need to wade in to thigh level at some of the places I launch. That works fine in the summer with shorts. I think I'd like to be able to try fishing into the fall, so I ordered a pair of Simms stocking foot waders and some FrogTog felt sole boots. The boots came in a while back, but the waders just came in yesterday. The waders fit great, but the boots were a half size too small. They only sell these in whole sizes on amazon, so I returned them for the next larger size.

The replacements are supposed to arrive later this week, so I hope to get back on the water and test the new pole then.

 

[yoderjac]

I decided to test out the mods I made to the boat and do some fishing today. It is getting a bit too cool for shorts, and the boots I ordered for the stocking foot waders came in this morning.

The boat needed me to push it a bit at this launch because of the raised rollers, but it was easy as pie to do. When I loaded the boat, the raised rollers did help it load smoother.

It was a windy day. I started out checking out the electronics. I used the new pole and put the 2D/SI/DI transducer at the shallowest setting to start with. It worked great. There were no issues from the boat. I can't see any reason to put it any deeper. I did not measure how deep it was but I should have. At any rate, I plan to cut off the top of the pole. I plan to leave the next two deeper settings, just in case, and get rid of the top of the pole.

I started out making one pass up the lake with the side imaging being recorded. I plan to transfer that to my computer to mark waypoints at structures for future trips. Not much was biting when I started about 1pm. I did catch a few small crappie about 3pm, but nothing large enough to bother filleting unless I had other larger fish. I quit about 4pm. It was windy but a nice day otherwise.

I'm happy with the mods I made!

 

[yoderjac]

Here is the 2D/SI/DI transducer pole after I cut it down:

 

[yoderjac]

When I was having issues with the side imaging, Humminbird sent me a new transducer to try. So, when I setup the new pole, I used the new transducer and left the old one on the YakAttack Switchblade, just in case there was an issue with the new setup. Given the way the new setup performed the other day, I pulled the Switchbalde and old transducer. This will make entry into the boat easier for me.

 

[yoderjac]

The weather seems to have broken here and crappie spawning will soon be upon us here in VA. So, I'm back at working on the boat again. If you scroll back up in the thread, you will see I started with a bow mount Minn Kota Edge. It is a foot pedal cable driven control electric motor with 45 lbs of thrust. While the power was more than enough for my inflatable, I had a few issues. First, the foot pedal was hard to keep in place but workable. Irritating, but not a big deal. The second, and more important issue, was that because the inflatable has such a large wind profile, I found it difficult to use the forward imaging, hold the boat in place, and fish.

With all the new fancy fish finding technology I got for the boat, the trolling motor was the same old technology I was using 30+ years ago when I had a bass boat. So, this winter, I decided I would upgrade the motor. I settled on the Minn Kota Kayak Terrova. It is a scaled down version of their regular Terrova series. It has a shorter shaft for a Kayak and comes with the mini remote instead of the remote with the screen. It is electric drive and integrates with the other onboard technology.

Because the Kayak Terrova was new, there was no discounting on price. I was hoping that on black Friday or after Christmas I would see a sale. Minn Kota offered $500 off many of the electric motors, including the Terrova series, but because it was new, the Kayak Terrova was excluded. It was too cold in the last part of January and all of February to work on the boat, so I just held off buying it. I did pick up the electric foot pedal control for it when I found it on sale as well as a heading sensor that is needed to use some of the more advanced features. I also picked up the Quick Release mounting bracket for it.

With the weather breaking, I ordered it off Amazon (best price I could find $100 of list and fee shipping) and it came in last week. For the last few days, I've been working on the installation:

The first thing I did was to figure out the layout and I installed the quick release bracket. That went pretty well. I must have torqued it a bit when I tightened the screws, either to the deck board or to the motor itself, because when I tried to insert the locking mechanism, I couldn't quite get it through the holes. It worked fine before it was installed, so I presume there was slight torque. I was able to resolve that by running a drill bit through the holes.

The next big decision was whether to install the kill switch. I understand that on a kayak, there is a threat of flipping it, so it makes sense to wear a wrist strap like you do when operating the gas motor on a bass boat. However, with my inflatable, I think the risk of flipping is zero and falling over board is low. I'm fishing while running the motor and can't realistically wear a wrist strap anyway. So, I decided to connect the motor directly to the battery and circuit breaker just like the Edge. So, I cut the plug off the Edge and installed it on the Kayak Terrova.

I was able to turn on the power and the green light lit up like it should. Rather than playing with the remote that uses bluetooth and worry about paring and everything, I decided to connect the foot pedal. It is a simple cable connection. In order to test it, I set the depth very shallow so the motor sits above the trailer when deployed and the prop can spin unobstructed. You can see this in the pic:

Curiously, I was able to turn the shaft with the foot pedal and the constant light and auto pilot switches lit up when flipped, I was unable to turn the prop. I put the speed on 1 and tried constant, momentary, and the prop on/off switch and none worked. So, I'm now wondering why:

- Bad motor?
- Bad foot control?
- Some kind of safety sensor that won't turn the prop if the motor is set too shallow or out of the water?
- Perhaps the kill switch must be installed.

At that point, I sent a message to Minn Kota tech support to see what they say.

Next, I decided to try the remote. It paired with the motor easily. It responded just like the foot pedal. I could turn the shaft and use all the functions except turning the prop. I think that eliminates the bad foot control.

I'm sure I won't hear from Tech support until Monday or Tuesday, so in the meantime, I installed the heading sensor. That was pretty straight forward with one exception. They say not to place it near ferrous metal or near power cables. To check the location, I intended to just use my orienteering compass. Well, the compass seemed to be off compared to my sense of north. After thinking about it for a minute, the boat is under a metal overhang next to a metal barn. I walked out into the field a bit and north changed to where I thought it should be. I really didn't have many places I could put the heading sensor, so I just installed it without verifying it with a compass. We will see how that works out.

The only other change I made was to move the anchor system to the other end of the boat. In order to put the teak deck on the boat, I had to install the raft hardware backwards so the intended front was the back and visa versa. So the anchor system was in the front of the boat. I wanted to make sure it did not affect the motor, so I moved it to the side near the rear. I didn't take picture of that yet.

So, if anyone has any idea why they prop won't turn let me know. It spins fine by hand. I'm starting to think it might be that the safety kill switch must be installed.

 

[yoderjac]

I heard back from Minn Kota tech support today. They do, in fact, have a safety feature on this motor that won't let the prop spin if it is deployed to a depth of less than 18 inches. So, it looks like I'm going to need to slide the boat a little off the trailer to test the motor.

 

[yoderjac]

I just tested both the foot control and the mini-remote and they both work and the prop turns as expected. I had to pull the end of the boat off the trailer to deploy the motor deep enough. I installed the heading sensor last night, but could not get it to power up. I think the battery for the electronics was low, so I put all the batteries on the charger.

When I tried to extend the winch cable the fob would connect, but the winch would not turn. I could hear it click when I tried. I checked the battery for that and it was dead. I had forgotten to plug in the charger over the winter. When I tested it, it was down to 4.75 volts. That was so low, the little 2 amp 6-volt/12-volt charger thought it was a 6-volt battery. I plugged it into a 12-volt 10 amp charger. We will see if I can recover it or if I need to replace it.

In a recent post above, I mentioned changing the anchor system.

With the original anchor system, the rope runs through a rope lock and then a pulley and then the frame tube to the transom. With a normally configured boat the transom is in the rear, but with my configuration, my deck sits on the transom, so it is in the front. The anchor is clipped to a rope under the transom and then end of the rope is tied to the tube.

With this configuration with the rope tied to the frame tube, the anchor can only go down 1/2 the depth of the rope. This is probably fine for use on rivers, but it is limiting in small lakes that I use the raft on. The other factor is potential interference with the motor with the anchor hanging just off the front of the boat.

My new configuration is in the picture above. I simply took a couple 45 degree 1 inch pieces of electrical conduit and connected them at a slight angle. I then just used cable ties to secure it to the frame. The rope now goes directly from the rope lock around the pulley and into the conduit. This is off the side near the rear of the boat as I have it configured.

 

[yoderjac]

Well, I'm making slow progress, but I think I'm close to done. After the batteries charged this afternoon, I went out and tried to pair the heading sensor with the motor. Again, it would not power up. When I tested the port, I was only getting a few microVolts out. Other ports gave me 14v so I knew the battery charge level was not an issue.

I pulled the electronics battery box, removed the battery, and started looking for the cause. When I built this battery box, I thought I might want to get a heading sensor some day, so I included a spare port. Because I wasn't using it for anything up to now, I never put a fuse in the fuse holder for that port. I put a fuse in and still had only microVolts coming out that port. I kept the battery outside the box so I could work on the connectors, but reconnected it. I then started tracking down the failure with the voltmeter. Sure enough, one of the connectors had popped off. Once I secured that connector, I got 14 volts out that port like I should.

I was then able to power up the heading sensor and pair it with the motor. The winch battery wasn't fully charged, but it was charged enough for me to resecure the boat back on the trailer for transport. The battery was now close enough to 12v that I could remove the big 10 amp 12v charger and plug back in the 2 amp 6v/12v charger and it was recognized as a 12volt battery.

I now only have a few thing left to do before I hit the water. I plan to see if I can use the One Boat Network app on my phone to control the motor tomorrow. Since I only have the mini-remote, I'll need to use that to calibrate the heading sensor. The other thing I need to do is see how difficult it is to deploy and stow the new motor from being in the boat. The Edge motor with the cable foot pedal has the old rope style release that you can use to deploy and stow the motor. This Terrova is designed to be deployed by pushing a release lever on the motor base but to stow by actually picking up the head of the motor. This makes sense on a bass boat, but is likely going to be difficult in my raft. I'm considering rigging up a rope or something to let me stow it without moving my weight so far forward as need to lift the head.

Looks like Crappie Time is just around the corner for me.