In this edition of RAILBLAZA customer DIY we share a solution from Hobie Pro Angler owner, Mark Whitehead of Australia. As you can see from Marks kayak above he is a big fan of RAILBLAZA and maximises his Pro Angler workspace using many of our accessories. Marks DIY tip today overcomes the issue of mounting our TracPort 350 parallel on the grabrails of the Pro Angler.

The TracPort 350 has a bridge support which makes it possible to support the Trac and accessories using only 1 StarPort, for the bridge support to work it has to rest into the screw hole recesses of the StarPort. Setting the TracPort 350 parallel using a surface mount StarPort is no problem, unfortunately this was not always going to be possible if you are using the RailMounts and TracPort 350 together…enter Marks DIY solution making it possible..

Please leave your feedback to this idea in the comments and be sure to check out links to Marks Blog and FaceBook at the end of the post…

Parallel Tracport 350 for Hobie Pro Angler

By Mark Whitehead, Australia

   
Please note: the modifications that are described below are my own idea, not that of Railblaza and if something does go wrong, well I’m totally to blame 🙂 Mark)

The Challenge.
When fitting the StarPorts on the grabrails of my Hobie Pro Angler Kayak I came across a few hurdles. Firstly I should have ordered the Railmount 32-41 but I ordered the 19-25 which was a pretty tight fit and I had to make some adjustments (I’m sure they could have been swapped but I was too impatient and impulsive to get them fitted).

Note from RAILBLAZA : the Hobie Pro Angler grabrails are 30mm..this is in between both of our Railmount offerings of 19-25/32-41 so we encourage the 32-41 in this instance with the use of and extra strip of grip tape to pack out the rail for the Railmount to fit as intended.

My Goal.
My main goal was I wanted the TracPort 350 to be parallel to the grabrail and not 90% to it (if you fit it correctly with the bridge support bracket in the screw holes it can only go 90%. (this applies to rails only).

The Plan.
So this is how I went about it - Firstly I needed to be able to get the fittings 90% to what they are. So I thought why not use the supplied StarPort base, but there were a few things I needed adjust if this was to be achieved.

• One was to drill out the base plate so the countersunk bolts would not protrude above the lip of the baseplate (collar), this was achieved by drilling them out a touch being very careful that I don’t go too far
• The next step was to insert the 2 bolts (purchased separately) into the deepened holes.
• I then had to drill out part of the back of the mount to allow for the bolt to fit (unfortunately not a very neat job)

Underneath of StarPort showing nuts (unfortunately 1 is imperial the other metric hence the different size nut, I will fix this (did I mention I was impulsive?) also shows the drilled out plate to accommodate the nuts.

Starport bolted into place, I used a countersunk screw and washer as that’s all I had left

Top section of RailMount in position, ready to go on the rail. Then slightly angle the fitting so the baseplate can be pushed on easily.

Showing the rubber grommet used to “fill” the recessed cavity that fits a nut, If I didn’t do this there is no way to tighten it as the head of the bolt is hidden. You could use just a larger washer but this works well

Once the two nuts were tightened there wasn’t any movement from the RailMount. The TracPort 350 bridge support bracket fits into the screw lugs as normal to give extra stability.

Mission accomplished, parallel TracPort!!.This shows the TracPort 350 in use: phone and rod holder within easy reach. Also shows the location of the other StarPorts. Thanks for your time, Mark

Leave a comment below and head over to check out more from Mark at his various channels..Links below

FaceBook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kayak-Fishing-love-that-yak/402364606490755
Blog - http://lovethatyak.blogspot.com.au/