Canoe mods

[bignose]

My "kayaks" are really canoes.

One of my canoes is an Old Town 12 ' Pack Canoe.

It's small and very light (33 lbs.) which is attractive when carrying, but it has a problem with it's initial stability. It's secondary stability seems to be OK, but I really don't want to find out the hard way.

It's a twitchy little beast, and not real confidence inspiring, especially as my balance isn't as good as it used to be. It's OK as a small pond craft, but I want to get more use out of it.

Catch a surprise wake from behind, and I find myself grabbing the gunnels and hanging on. A bit nerve wracking.

With that in mind, I set about creating a retractable pontoon system to make the craft a little more user friendly.

Using the F-14 swing wing fighter as my model, I got some blemished floats made by Spring Creek and designed a way to swing them from flush against the side of the canoe extending out to 16" from each side.
When flush against the side of the canoe, I should be able to paddle without any difficulty. I can also adjust the height of the floats.
The way I have them set up, I should still be able to cast forwards without them being in the way, and when I use my motor, the motor mount should fit in behind this.


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[Mark]

Very nice engineering Stu.

You have added stability to an extremely lightweight boat.

My son paddles a Pack -- youthful agility and balance help him keep the wet side down.

At the launch he tosses it on his shoulder and walks it to and from the water -- while I am loading my kayak on my cart.

[J.A. Veil]

Your craftsmanship looks good. But you are showing your age. You just made a walker for your canoe.

[bignose]

That is really funny, sad, but true!

Back in the day..........

When I was teaching courses for the Red Cross, I used to be able to "gunnel pump" a canoe. Check out Youtube: Gunnel pumping
This involves balancing in a standing position on the gunnel towards the stern of the canoe, and using an up-down pumping, bending your knees vigorously, using this motion creates thrust to make the canoe propel forward. I could actually do this and run the obstacle I set up for my trainees!

These days I practically need a crane to help me out of the boat after a couple of hours of fishing.

[HJS]

Several years ago I borrowed my bro-N-law's 12' oldtown pack canoe to fish a side creek on the Magothy targeting pickerel. By the end of my outing I was a nervous wreck after have to twitch and turn for hours to keep from flipping...Never again. I'll stick with my 16' Oldtown Camper.

[dsaavedra]

That looks slick

[Redfish12]

Stu that boat is very similar to my first paddlecraft - an old town discovery 12 ft solo. It was very unstable and was given to me by a family friend who took it out once, swamped, and almost drown on a calm day on a lake. He had a life jacket on but it was cold and he was surprised. He lost some very high end orvis flyfishing stuff and wanted the kayak out of his sight! I used to take it out on the New River when I was in college and swamped it multiple times trying to run through some rapids. I learned to lash the rods down and had a fanny pack with my tackle in it so I never lost anything. It was a pain to drain but sometimes I think I miss that boat!