Photos of Boat Armor Outfitting

December 7, 2005

I couldn’t wait until next week to put these up so I
took photos of my All-Star, that has been outfitted for some time with
these prototype pieces. The concept is there, and the general look is
the same. The final product will be much cleaner, of course. Trim jobs
will be crisp. Have you ever noticed just how nice the guys do on the
craftsmanship on a Jackson Kayak trim job? Smooth, nice lines, with each
trim line being rounded perfectly? Sorry, off topic there.

My All-Star has the Happy Seat/Happy Thruster Combo
in it when I paddle it. I took one photo of that to see the entire package
at once. In my Rocker or Super Hero I paddle with the Happy Seat, or nothing.
Clay uses his Happy Seat when creeking.

What you are looking at are photos of the implimentation
of the goal to create the stiffest, safest, most performance enhancing,
comfortable, and lightest outfitting on the market. The total package
weighs a pound more than our 2005 outfitting, but is well worth it. We
were also able to save some weight on the hulls on the Fun and Star Series
so it is close to balancing out.

What makes it work is the package and it assembly.

First off David Knight’s design of the seat and seat
bracket are genius. By trianulating the bracket between the deck, seat
top, and sidewall, he took a simple shape and created a truck holding
part that is better than anything ever made. It also allows the adjustment
screw in the seat to be inside the boat instead of outside, so now holes
or screw driver needed. See photo of the thumbscrew inside the seat. Just
pull the hip pads back and loosen two revolutions, then slide the seat,
then tighten, then you are off and running. Much easier than our 2004/5
system. The seat itself meets the bottom of the boat nicely, due to proper
trimming, and it is SUPER stiff due to its geometry. Did I mention that
David Knight’s full time job is designing "Structures" for the
Navy ships and subs so they wont’ break or get blown up? This helps in
his designing of strong shapes for our boats, and he was creator of the
seat and bracket concept.

The Extrude U-Channel is another major key component.
It turns a normal mini-cell wall into a bomber bulkhead. Without the U-Channel
my Landcruiser would have collapsed both kayaks like nothing, because
Mini-cell is not very stiff. The U-channel keeps the wall from bending,
as well as provides strength of its own, and holds the beam on the wall.
The beam is attached to the U-Channel on the backside.

The Seat is also attached to the composite beam. This
composite beam was a major breakthrough for Jackson Kayak when we designed
it in 2004. Light and stronger than anything ever used in a kayak for
hull support, we only needed to figure out how to bend it (we did that
in 2004) Our weak point was never the beam. The beam wasn’t attached to
the front wall, or the seat. This caused the front wall to be able to
move, as well as the beam. Our weak link was getting everything linked
togther in a package that worked well, that is what Boat Armor has done.

Remember when looking at these photos that:

1. the U-Channels here are prototype and thermoformed,
not extruded. The new ones will be cleaner and way stronger. 2. The Seat
is ABS, where the new one will be HDPE, from a cooled tool for ideal forming,
and trimmed by our best guys. 3. My boat is well used (since October about
every day) and dirty. My boat is actually a scrap boat that I saved from
destruction, but it works great for me. (the Kiss offs at the right thigh
brace aren’t kissed off) 4. The Sweet Cheeks has the wrong strap locations
on it. The final one is just a little different.

Other than that, enjoy!