Voetpomp in een PE-zeekajak

Introduction

From a safety point of view a pump is a piece of equipment that should be aboard of any seakayak.
Being convinced that a foot-operated pump is is the best option, I walk into a problem regarding PE-seakayaks because it is difficult to mount a footpomp there.

For a polyester kayak the mounting of a footpump is easy. Among other options it is a good solution to mount the pump on the bulkhead in the cockpit, giving the advantage of using the bulkhead as a footrest.

For a PE-seakayak however this is not a very good solution because PE seakayaks are often equiped with foam bulkheads which are glued in place. Mounting a pump on those will lead directly to leakage of the bulkheads once you are going to apply quit a lot of force while paddling or pumping.
A more modern way of applying the bulkheads can be seen at the Valley-PE-seakayaks for instance: these are welded in place. Although this is much stronger I do not recommend to apply so much force to them during paddling and pumping. On the longer term I expect damage or leakage of the bulkheads because a weld in PE is not as strong as a polyester connection is.

Being a promotor of the footpump I have been thinking quite a lot about this problem.

Finally I found the solution when looking in my WW-kayak where a rigid construction, with a board as footrest, was installed. In my opnion it is easy to mount a footpump on a construction like that, which can be used in any seakayak: Thus also in PE-seakayaks.

The idea

The basic idea is this construction, which can be produced in several ways (just follow your creativity in this). The two metal bars are bolted to the kajak, making it possible to adjust it to other leg-lengths as well. The metal bars are quite long for 2 reasons: it is easier to adjust the length once it is installed in your cockpit because of the longer length there is less momentum applied to the bolts, thus protecting the hull for damaging. Look for instance at the JR-footrests which are mounted in quite a lot of kayaks: often the hull is a little bit deformed around the bolts.
Basic steps: Mount a footpump on the plate. Install the in- and outlet tubes to the pump.
Apply foam blocks on the left- and rigth side of the pump to support your feet. Bolt the complete construction to the kayak. Connect the outlettube to an outlet in the hull or dek.
Remark: You could make the outlettube a little bit longer than necessary to make it possible to move the complete "pump&footrest device" a little bit for- or backwards.