CartOur Exclusive SQUARE POST System for Stabilizer Floats
The principle: If you don't want a peg to turn, make it a SQUARE peg in a square hole.
We don't want the floats to turn. We only want them to adjust up and down and in and out. Never right and left. The new square-post system is perfect for that! See Video (click)
|
Close-up of the Square Post System |
The square post fits over the round post and has a hole through it at the bottom that aligns with the hole in the round tube and the holes in the bumps on top of the float. When you slide the pin through, then float, round tube and square tube are all pinned together. A single little knob clamp up on the horizontal float arm clamps the square post firmly, with very little hand effort. Floats are automatically aligned to point straight ahead, all the time. Vertical adjustment is an easy ohe-hand operation to lock and unlock the clamp. Available as original equipment or as a conversion kit to convert your old round-post Hydrodynamic floats to square post. Kit includes new arms. The conversion kit is item 1037. Also available as an upgrade option when ordering a sail kit or other item that includes hydrodynamic floats as item 1031 For a complete square-post stabilizer for canoe or kayak, see the main stabilizer page. |
.jpg)
Another principle: If you don't want a clamp to require a lot of hand effort, don't ask it to do too much. The clamp on a round post has to grip super-tight to prevent the floats from twisting out of alignment. The clamp on a square post only has to lock the vertical adjustment, which is a much easier thing for a clamp to do. Two fingers can do that with our square-post clamp!
Compare:
Round Post System
Closeup of round-post arms with lever-lock clamps.jpg)
====================
To Return to the Stabilizer Ordering Page Click Here or use the back button on your browser. Questions? Order by phone? 978 263 7598
The long story if you're curious: I've been selling the Hydrodynamic stabilizer ever since Spring Creek first introduced them about 2007 (that's a guess). They are great. And the lever-lock clamp, which they came up with later made them even better, because it grips so much tighter and keeps the floats from turning, provided you get it tight enough. But one day a customer said to me he was struggling with the lever lock and why didn't we make the post square, to just completely eliminate the issue of floats turning.
Brillliant! Why didn't I think of that? But I don't make the floats. How was I going to get a square post onto a float made for round posts? I let the problem percolate in the back of my mind for about 10 years, and finally started tinkering with a square post that would fit OVER the round post. But how to hold the square and the round posts together? Screw? No. Glue? No! Finally the solution came to me: Make the square post go all the way down to the top of the float and provide holes in the outer post for the pin, and a slot for the cord that holds the pin.
Now I had a square post that worked and was convenient and easy to make in volume. I just needed a good solution for a square-post clamp.
I actually came up with the square-post clamp in designing a sliding oarpin socket for adjustable rowing outriggers. I took a short piece of the crossbar material and cut a big round shallow hole in it on one side, and put a bolt through it from the other side. A big washer on the side with the big hole could then press against a square tube sliding inside the crossbar material, and a star knob on that bolt could press on the washer. Voila! A square tube clamp!
In 2019 I made a bunch by hand and tried them out myself and then started selling them to selected customers, without putting them on the website. I only sold square-post stabilizers to people who called. They loved them, and I didn't have a single complaint about any type of issue. So, I contracted out the manufacturing and got a larger quantity -- more than I was willing to make myself, but still small -- and started shipping them as standard on my sail kits. I also put a small listing for them on the website. Again, people loved them and there were no issues. So, now (2021) is the year of the wider rollout of this innovation.
So now you know the story of the square post.
Send feedback to jim@sailboatsToGo.com.
-- Jim Luckett, owner (and the only guy here!) of SailboatsToGo
Happy customer on Cape Cod doing ocean sailing with the square-post stabilizer system. (above)
Happy Customer with unhappy fish somewhere in the South Pacific (Guam?) with square post on kayak stabilizer. (below)
.jpg)
"I do love those outriggers.. Even a 22.5 lb Rusty jobfish 700 ft directly below me pulling kayak hard down to starboard only slightly buried the float .... Not even a little bit of instability... I love your product."
.jpg)