broken cable

I had paddled from Fishhoek to Muizenberg yesterday to catch some nice swell. After catching about four good ones my rudder cable snapped. This was on a second hand XT that I bought from the paddling center. The swell was pretty big yesterday and aside from swimming the ski in I was pretty buggered. Any advice on what to do in this kind of a situation? I eventually caught a ride in to shore with a pair of lifesavers and their rubber duck. Will definitely go and buy some flares now. thanks again to the guy that gave me a lift back to fishoek.

That has happened to me twice when surfing waves fortunately close to shore both times.

Pretty scary consequences - best thig is the change rudder cables every 6 months to a year and check joiners etc regularly.

I know that one of the ski makers has a piece of elastic that clips onto a rudder bar if one cable breaks allowing you to jump off, connect it and then use one foot to steer and then let the rubber pull the other way.

Thanks. I will definitely investigate those elastic clips.

Hi there - there are pics of the system in our review of the Honcho Oceans Pro. Check it out here:

www.surfski.info/content/view/433/156/

You don't even need to modify your ski... just add a piece of bicycle tube (20" long) to your usual paddling gear. If cable break, jump in the water, wrap the tube around the hull close to the stern and tie the other end of tube around tiller bar, on the side of the unbroken cable... you can now steer with one foot.