Soft Webbing Padeyes for the Pygmy Borealis XL Kayak

Soft Webbing Strap Eyes

If you want to put shock cording or perimeter lines on your kayak, Pygmy™ offers a kit that includes hard plastic strap eyes that you screw into your hull. They stick up and are a bit cheap looking. An easy, strong, softer, and much better looking solution is to make your own soft strap eyes out of nylon webbing material.

Go to your local sewing/fabric store and buy some ¾” wide polypropylene webbing (NOT cloth!). You’ll cut them to 4.5” so get as much as you need to cover all the pad eyes you plan to use. It's usually sold by the yard so get at least two. It's cheap. I bought mine at Seattle Fabrics for $0.55/yard. They also have many other colors and widths! I usually get black because it doesn’t fade as quickly, but these are so easy to make that if you choose another color you can easily replace them later if they fade.

You’ll also need stainless steel hardware:  12 to 16 or more #10/32 x ¾” Stainless Steel Machine Screws and #10 lock washers depending on how many pad eyes you are installing. Pygmy™ sells them but so do many well-stocked hardware stores and marine stores. You’ll also need some #10 stainless steel fabric washers to hold the webbing down securely.

You’ll also need a propane torch with a quick lighting trigger. The type that you have to spark to start is too hard to continually start and stop. For a few more dollars get the quick start trigger. Example below. 

Cut as many pieces as you need: Use scissors and cut them into 4.5" pieces. 4.5" makes a pad eye large enough for two lines of shock cord to easily pass through. Any smaller and it will become impossible to pass two lines through. You'll often need to get two lines through the same pad eye.

Melt the ends so they don't fray: Holding a propane torch to an old utility knife blade works well. Clamp the blade in a pair of Vice Grips and hold to the lit propane torch for a few seconds. You heat the blade and then lightly rub the end of the webbing on the blade. Gives a very smooth, finished look. See pictures below.

Fold the pieces: Fold the ends over each other such that the inside end touches the far crease, but the outside end only goes halfway up the pad-eye. See pictures below.

Melt a hole through the triple-layer end: Use a propane torch on a nail held by Vice Grips. Clamp the Vice Grips to the table and then heat the nail with the propane torch. Quickly turn off the torch and center the tripled-up end of the padeye over the hot nail. Melt through the padeye. If you just drill the bolt through the webbing instead of melting it, it may end up fraying and tearing out. See pictures above and below. Heat and repeat for each padeye.

As you can see I experimented with red webbing too.

Bolt it through the hull: Bolt down each piece where you've drilled your holes in the hull. Put the folded side up. See picture below. Cutting the straps at 4.5" will leave a large enough opening for two lengths of shock cord to pass through. If you make it much smaller then it will be impossible to get two cords through.

The picture below is from a previous kayak (a Pygmy Coho Hi Volume) but this current kayak should look similar. Pygmy kayaks always look great with several coats of varnish and the deck hardware installed! I'm excited!

I haven't drilled my holes yet, but will shortly. Right now I'm waiting for my order of extra hardener and resin to arrive from Pygmy. More later!


Aloha!