Venturi Plug?

I've been training a bit for the 111km overnight Hawkesbury Classic in about 6 weeks and my feet have always been sitting in a few inchs of water. As the race is in a river and I hope to have no waves crashing over the sides and filling the bucket I wanted to block the drain and if possible do it without having a negative effect on the drag.

Has anyone got any good tips for plugging up the drain?
I dont really need a permenat solution, just one that will last for 13hrs or so.

Hi Shady

Just go to Clarke Rubber buy a couple of rubber plugs, drill a hole which you can put a bit of cord through and the rubber seals over this attach to your foot plate and plug the venturi. Will keep about 95% of the water out and is removable.

cheers
Tom

I'd make sure you can remove while paddling during that 13 hours, you'd be surprised how much water can accumulate in the bucket just from paddle splash. In marathon paddles I've done with a scupper blocked I had about an inch of water sloshing around after 2 hours and you are in the boat 13!

What you really need of course is one-way valves in the scuppers. Oh! There are some in the post on the way to me from Carbonology Sport!

We'll be installing them on a couple of skis... and we'll post here what we find about installing and using them.

I made ones with silicon.

Lined the venturi with detergent solution - reduce stick.
Pumped silicon in and placed a cotterpin - $2 of from bunnings, into the middle with the bent hook part sticking out. The remaining part in the silcon to act as a fastenging into the silicon plug.
Let dry a couple of days.
Pull/push out
Zero water leakage
Can be put in, taken out as needed

Tapered rubber bung from BCF. Available in various sizes.
Stainless screw in the end to tie off to.

And stella have a rubber bung with a contoured top to grip . and hole for string I just ordered one online, but would be cheaper to go and buy a cork or rubber bung from a rubber shop.

Thanks for the advice. I went down to my local Clark Rubber store and they had a couple of rubber plugs that looked like they would fit. One fit perfectly and with a stainless screw in the middle to help removal I've now got a reasonable bung. Only problem is it only fits the hole from the bottom which makes it a little hard to remove whe paddling.

Check out fitting a bullet to your venturi, your ski would then drain at about 8kph which I think you would be doing easy in relation to the moving water? Plug the hole and water is going to build up anyway over time just from water dropping off your paddle.

tomb wrote: Hi Shady

Just go to Clarke Rubber buy a couple of rubber plugs, drill a hole which you can put a bit of cord through and the rubber seals over this attach to your foot plate and plug the venturi. Will keep about 95% of the water out and is removable.

cheers
Tom

Yes I agree with you mate, this is exactly that which i want to expose....

Cheer!

If you are paddling an Epic V10 Sport (as noted below your post), I suspect it has the same venturi as the Epic V10L I used to paddle. If so, a 12 gauge shotshell wad (like a Winchester AA12) makes a perfect plug for the venturi.

about 2 weeks too late....I just handed an icecream container full of 12guage shells into the police a fortnight ago. These were live so probably best not to use them as a bung.

I had some 303 shells as well but they were probably to small a diameter.

Saw Rob's bit about the one way valves on the Carbonology boats this morning, so I went out to the shed, cut out some 2mm closed cell foam slightly larger than the Venturi hole, silastic on the front and glued it over the venturi under the bullet. Just went for a paddle and I'll be stuffed, it worked perfectly.
Now, I paddle a Vault and it is the only boat I know that fills like a rocket the moment you sit in it or stop paddling, cos it has a small footwell and 2 venturi's and statistically this is only one paddle and it will probably break tomorrow, but hey, it worked. Took 10 minutes to do, added no weight, didn't change the way the boat drained.
If you live in the Bahamas, don't bother. If you paddle an older Vault in colder water,well worth the effort. If you're wealthy buy a new Vault with the fancy one way venturi. I would.

Dicko wrote: Saw Rob's bit about the one way valves on the Carbonology boats this morning,

After a couple of months in the new ( & lighter)Flash with the one way valves I'm doing a write up of the one way valves tomorrow to send off to Rob, stay tuned

Stellar SE Sport. The high volume venturi means lots of water in, as well as out.
Fitted a snorkel one way purge valve into the venturi. Combined with a bullet kit the venturi now drains very well, with no back flow when not at speed

Hi Smoky000 any idea of the brand/type of that snorkel? I have been searching long and hard for one that will fit my Stellar SEL. I have just started paddling skis again 7 months after a hemipelvectomy. I was disabled when I first start paddling skis but this latest set back takes disability to a whole new level. I am ok once under way but physically getting in and out of a ski is interesting. One of my issues is I can not easy use the venturi bung, hence the need for the one way valve.
Cheers

This one post had me googling for "hemipelvectomy"... Wow ! I'm amzed you're still paddling a surfski; I just wish to have the same will you have if I ever get injured that bad.

I haven't seen Smoky000's ski but I think He's talking about something like that :

www.olanderswim.se/en/olander-frontal-sn...are-purge-valve.html

www.dukeaquatics.com/ncda/UserFiles/Imag...%20Purge%20Valve.jpg

Thanks Hiro,

I will see what I can find.
As for the desire/determination to paddle a ski still, from my experiences most disabled people who achieve incredible stuff are down right stubborn! Don't ever tell a determined disabled person they can't do something...were there is a will there is often a way. As my surgeon says handicapped is often just a state of mind. There are heaps of people out there much more disabled than me on ski's. I have an internet friend who only has one arm and he paddles a ski with a two bladed paddle. He uses a modified paddle into which he attaches his fore-arm along the same plane as the shaft.
We might not be able to paddle as well as many non-disabled paddlers but the real point is that we still enjoy our surfski. Also you might be surprised by just how strong a disabled person can become in their core. Often the disability to a limb results in having to use more core muscles all the time in normal life to get various movements.

Yep, similar to the green valve (slightly longer in the body & the lightest mushroom valve I could find) found mine for $5 in the local scuba diving store's spare parts box.

I had to file the circumference down a little to fit in the venturi hole and wrapped it in plumbers tape to test fit. Once I knew it worked I semi-permanently fitted it with a light smear of silicone sealant.

Note that it does reduce the drain rate a little. The positive trade off is no back fill when you slow down. With a bullet fitted it is not noticeable.

I think the new carbonology skis are using the same type of valve.

I'd be heading down the local bottleshop and buying a couple of bottles of wine, but make sure that they're not the new style screw caps.

Then I'd shape the corks.

Works the same as proper bung plugs, but my ways more fun.