What to fix on a used kayak

What you can safely ignore

A used polyethylene kayak looks worse than it is. Almost all the damage you can see is irrelevant to whether it floats and paddles.

• Surface scratches. Years of being dragged up ramps. They have no effect on strength and essentially none on speed at recreational pace. Ignore them.
• Deep gouges that have not gone through. Run a fingernail across; if it catches but you cannot see light through it, the hull is fine. A hot air gun can smooth a raised burr if it bothers you, but it is cosmetic.
• Sun fade. A boat that was red and is now pink has faded pigment. That alone is cosmetic — but see the brittleness note below, because heavy fade is a signal about something else.
• Scuffed hatch covers and worn stickers. Cosmetic.

The four things that actually matter

1. Cracks that go all the way through. Hold the boat up and look for light. Check especially at the bow and stern, at the scupper tubes, and around any hardware. A through-crack in polyethylene is repairable by plastic welding, and that is a specialist job that costs real money on a cheap boat.

2. Deformation. Set the boat down on a flat surface and look along it from the bow. A hull that was stored badly — on its side against a wall, or strapped down hard on a hot roof — can hold a permanent flat spot or a twist. A flat spot makes the boat track badly and it is very hard to reverse. Mild dents will often relax if you leave the boat in the sun the right way up; a twist will not.

3. Water inside the hull. Lift the bow. If you hear sloshing, water is inside a cavity that should be sealed. On a sit-on-top the usual cause is a cracked scupper tube; on a sit-in it is a failed bulkhead or a hole under a fitting. This is the fault most worth finding, because it gets worse and because the boat gets heavier all season.

4. Brittleness from UV. Heavy fade plus a chalky surface that leaves powder on your finger means years outdoors, and UV does eventually make polyethylene brittle rather than just faded. Press firmly on a large flat panel: it should flex and spring back. If it feels stiff and makes a crackling sound, walk away. That is the one on this list that is not economic to fix.

The cheap fixes worth doing straight away

Deck rigging and bungees. Elastic perishes in UV and a ten-year-old bungee has no elasticity left. Replacing all of it with fresh cord costs very little and takes an evening, and it restores the places you actually stow things.

Seat straps and buckles. On used boats the strap webbing is usually fine and the plastic buckles have gone brittle. Replacement buckles cost almost nothing. Check this before concluding you need a whole new seat — details on seat upgrades.

Scupper plugs. Rubber perishes. If the previous owner left plugs in for five years they are probably hard and cracked. Cheap to replace, and worth understanding before you refit them.

Hatch seals. A perished foam or rubber seal lets water into the hull every trip. Replacement seal kits exist for most brands, and in the meantime a dry bag inside the hatch does the real work.

Old holes from removed hardware

Very common on a used fishing kayak, where the previous owner took the rod holders and fish finder with them.

Every abandoned hole is a leak. The fix is straightforward: a stainless bolt with a rubber well nut, or a plastic hole plug, bedded in marine sealant. Do this before the first trip rather than after, because a slow leak into the hull is exactly the fault described above and it is annoying to trace later.

If the holes happen to match the bolt pattern of the hardware you were going to fit anyway, reuse them. Scotty publishes the bolt pattern for its mounts specifically so you can check — details on rigging a used fishing kayak.

What to carry once it is fixed

A boat that has had water in it once will have it again, so a hand bilge pump belongs on the deck rather than in the garage. Attwood publishes up to 8 gallons a minute for its hand pump, which is an order of magnitude above the small kayak-specific pumps.

The full list of what a neglected boat needs, priced, is the used kayak rescue kit.