I wasn't able to boat this weekend  so I built a fiberglass over-thruster in my spare time.  I've wanted to buy one but it's hard to justify $40 for a piece of plastic.  I've seen ones made of foam and the popular beach ball but this seems like a better solution.

I ran across this post on Atlantic Kayaker that gave great instructions on how to make one out of fiberglass.  I pretty much followed their directions and it was pretty easy.  I have no experience with fiberglass but it's some messy/smelly stuff. 

My intention was to take pictures through the process but I ended up just taking shots of the finished product.

Check it out!!  I'm happy to help someone make one if interested.  It cost me less than $20.


Top (link)


Bottom (link)


On the boat (link)

Now I can't use the excuse of my skirt imploding for not being able to loop!

I'm going to do some flatwater at Gasworks around 7:00 tonight to try it out if anyone wants to join me.


Edited by Ryan - 11 Jun 2007 at 3:25pm

Looks nice, lets get some instructions on making one of these up.

Edit: nevermind, I'm a retard....

Edited by Yotes - 11 Jun 2007 at 3:43pm

Dude, that owns! Nice job. You need to start selling them now!

right on, i'll head over there instead. I get tired of tourists taking pics of me from the "Duck" anyways. :)

Nice, I started mine up last night. All the volume of the beach ball plus some leg room!

Thanks for the tips, I had a few ideas for some mods. One was to put foam near the edges to keep it in place along the cockpit rim. One thing you might try to keep the duct tape from peeling is using a hair dryer or heat gun to melt it into place, kind of like doing a duct tape repair on a kayak. There's a good article on oregon kayaking about how to do that. I'll put up some pics when I'm done with mine.

I think you need a smaller boat.  i'm sure it's possible in a Teckno (maybe?) but it would be easier to learn in a smaller boat. 

I could hardly get the bow down in a LL Pop and then bought a Crazy 88 and was cartwheeling in no time.  I've been working on the loop for a while now and after adding the overthruster I was starting to get some clean loops last night. 

It's all about technique, practice, AND the right boat.

Ya, I know my boat is holding me back, this fall I will be buying something different................

What if I don't have a papason chair?

Where do you find this stuff at? Crazy video.

You have got to be kidding me, right? Are you going down the river, like the Sky or something? I would love to get a video of you doing Boulder Drop!

That  would be sick if you could add a thruster too that choat !!!!!!!

Update...

I've been using the my "fiber-thruster" for a while now and the foam I glued to the bottom to keep it afloat came off the other day.  I used the rubber cement stuff I bought about 3 years ago to outfit my boat.  It could very well be that it's old.  I did re-outfit my Huka this season and it's holding up fine so who knows.

Anyhow, I slapped some (a lot) of ducktape over the foam and will see how that works. It does not float on it's own.


(larger image)

Remember, it's not pretty but works great!  Loop!

Yotes, did you ever make one? Take some pics dude!