ama quickstraps?

aukaiNYC

Our club is located in New York City and, as you can probably imagine, space for us comes at a serious premium. Because of our space constraints, one of our canoes is stored unrigged. The unrigged canoe is kept on the dock, while the rigged ama and iakos are stored in the boathouse. When crews want to use the canoe they just rig the canoe with quickstraps.
The problem is the ama and iakos are awkward to move and take up a ton of space. We would love to store them unrigged, but rigging the ama and iakos with rope takes way too long for us to do all the time. Does anybody know of a quickstrap equivalent for rigging the iakos to the ama?
Thanks,
Brent

Submitted by aukaiNYC on Thu, 01/05/2012 - 2:21pm

Jibofo

Use dowels through the holes in the ama and rig the straps around them. Not ideal but on flat water you'll probably survive.

#1 Thu, 01/05/2012 - 4:14pm

fabrice

How about using inner tube just like the tahitians do ?
Here we've got the same storage issues but our boat is rigged in 10 min.
No cons only pros with that method :

Everybody is due to learn rigging (it's so easy no one can say it's not for him/her)
You can test and learn a lot (assuming you need this, that's our case indeed)
The rigging is always sound and fresh, rotten rubber is checked and discarded.
It costs nothing (dumped tubes from a car garage in the neighborhood)
You rig each time exactly the way it's needed regarding crew weight and weather forecast the moment being.

#2 Thu, 01/05/2012 - 9:43pm

poopoopaddler

Brent, sent you a PM. I'll send you the info you need to get the straps you'll want. Cheap too!

#3 Thu, 01/05/2012 - 10:09pm

onnopaddle

Maybe check on the SS ones Ryan has ?
http://poguesports.com/site/
aloha,
pog

#4 Fri, 01/06/2012 - 8:16pm

healthyearth

@poopoo- I'd like to know those straps also.

#5 Mon, 01/09/2012 - 10:33am

aukaiNYC

Thanks, Poops and everybody for the suggestions!
The straps Poops recommended are 1" stainless steel ratchet straps with 8' of webbing. Really excited to give them a try on our unrigged canoe next season, but the idea did start a conversation in our club about quickstraps generally.
Beyond the obvious downside of losing cultural knowledge of traditional rigging techniques that could result from becoming too dependent on quickstraps, does anyone think the lack of flex in the straps compared to rope might cause damage to canoes over time if used constantly?

#6 Mon, 01/09/2012 - 10:51am

hasto

My club has been using ratchet straps (quickstraps) to rig our canoes for at least 5 years and have yet to see any damage caused by using them. And now that our new canoes don't require any rigging at all, it's even easier & more convenient.

#7 Mon, 01/09/2012 - 11:09am

lilrabbit129

A point that was brought up in a recent conversation between quickstraps vs Kaula is that quickstaps do hold strong, but they have one point of failure. If the ratchet mechanism were to break or come apart, the entire rig is compromised. With Kaula if it were to snap, it would only partly come apart, and presumably the rest would hold together. At least long enough to get back to shore.
Please correct me if I've heard wrong.

#8 Tue, 01/10/2012 - 7:39am

E7M

Most clubs no matter whether using rope or quickstraps, usually use two sets of rubber tubing wrapped around the iako and wai. In case the rope, ratchet or strap fails, the rubber tubing still holds the rig together.

#9 Tue, 01/10/2012 - 12:35pm