Hi Bob. I built a WD14 for use with a sail rig and had the same issue. I thought long and hard about what to do - put some re-inforcing blocks on the inside of the boat was one option I was seriously considering but I eventually decided on 4 small chain plates bolted to the hull. They're made of stainless steel plate with a ss ring welded on the top. 

I carefully cut 4 slots in the sides of the boat for the right angled bit to fit into then drilled and bolted them on.

They work just fine.

Brilliant suggestion Yambo!  How did you seal the slots you made into the hull?  Do you remember your source?  I did a quick search but didn't turn up anything.

Great looking boat :-)

I don't have many good ideas so I'm quite pleased with that one, thanks! The plates were made up by a friend in the industrial part of Marmaris, Turkey (I live in a small village about 12 miles from Marmaris). I'd bought the ss rings in a local chandlers, took them along to my friend and told him what I wanted. It took him longer to polish them than to make them!

The plates have a thin sheet of rubber between them and the hull and I deliberately cut the slots for a very tight fit.I epoxied the slots (of course!)  prior to fitting and then siliconed on the inside after fitting. I've had no issues with water getting in and if it did, I'm sure I put more water in the boat getting in it than any leak would produce. 

The WD 14 is great for the sail rig - the cockpit is huge and very comfortable. I know John Harris reckons the WD 12 would be his choice but I wanted a bit of extra room - I can take my grandchildren out for a sail with no space problems and at other times I can load up with as much gear as I want for a night or two out - we have a great coastline for that sort of thing. I hope you enjoy building and using the boat as much I've had. Just be careful though, the world and his dog will want a go and you might not see them for a couple of hours!

Got it! Thanks again Yambo.  Welding stainless is beyond my ablities, but I might know a guy.

Meanwhile still thinking of options.  CLC - any thoughts?

For others that have modified their kayaks for use with the sail rig, do the eye bolts bother you when you're not lashed into the rig?  Is it worth thinking of a way to make them easily removable? 

(for example, if we used eye bolts with machine bolt thread rather than wood screw thread they could be taken out leaving just a threaded socket)

Bob,

Don't forget to screw a greased bolt into that socket when the eye bolt is not in it. Otherwise water and sand will abrade and corrode it.

I'm also in the process of adding a sail rig to my WD12. It's early days yet, so so far I'm concentrating on building the kit, rather than modding the existing hull, but the attachments are something I've been thinking of, so this thread is interesting.

Yambo's SS chain plates are brilliant. If I had a painted hull I'd probably use something like those. Unfortunately, I need to make the look compatible with my existing hull which has a brass padeye as the lone visible metallic part. In fact, I've been converging on using brass padeyes instead of SS eyebolts (which I find to be a hideous mismatch with my okoume hull and sapele deck). If I go with the padeyes, I'll have to put some kind of a backing plate to distribute the stress, but it should be possible to make it thin enough so that it wouldn't bother my legs.

The brass against sapele is attractive enough so that I wouldn't worry about removing it when I'm just paddling.

Laszlo