Tapered Canoe Stem Dry Bags

[Guest]

The decked canoe taper dry bags did not fit in our open canoes worth a dang.

P8111163 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Time to try my hand at making an open canoe stem taper. I will skip the redundant blather about template shapes, but I am getting better at that design aspect.

P9041201 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P9041202 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Most importantly, on a tapered bag that opens from the smaller end, it is critical to end the tapered sides before the foldovers, so the bag has flat, even folds when rolled closed.

This is the largest DIY dry bag I have made, so I used 1.5 inch heat sealed seams and 1.5 inch webbing, buckles and bar slides.

P9081210 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

And large grommets, which need a large nail head to melt a sealed hole.

P9081208 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The bar slides and large grommets may eventually be used to accommodate a webbing harness for backpack style carries. As is the bag is a (two) armful, which leave no free hand to swat flies.

Cut fabric size before seam seal ironing:
72 inches at the wide end
49 inches at the narrow (opening) end
50 inches long

That produced this

P9081212 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Which, when stuffed to most bulbous fullness, fit like this in the Penobscot bow

P9081204 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

And this in the stern

P9081206 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Packed less full the taper bag could slide further into the stem on a canoe without float tanks.

Those bags could use a purge valve, there is a lot of trapped air. But as a form fitting float bag/dry bag they would occlude a lot of water in a capsize.

It took two full yards of fabric to make that canoe stem taper, with some long tapered scrap left over. At the usual $22 a yard I might not have tried, but by golly I think I will make another.

 

[Holmes375]

That's a big one! Nice work though. I really should start making a few simple fabric items so I can add that skill to my DIY repertoire.

In my kayaking days I used bow & stern dry bags out of necessity. But I keep adding to my canoe trip pack gear and would now find them very useful in the open boat, as well.

 

[Guest]

In my kayaking days I used bow & stern dry bags out of necessity. But I keep adding to my canoe trip pack gear and would now find them very useful in the open boat, as well.

The initial tapered dry bag issue for me was that narrow kayak taper bags did not fill the stems of the wider decked canoes very well. I was astounded at how much lightweight stuff fit in a properly sized decked canoe stem bag.

I am, in my old age, a no portage Glamper at heart and bring a lot of comfort gear. That open canoe taper fits in our 15 and 16 foot solos, flush under spray covers, and packs fairly form fitting in the narrows. If I were using a smaller solo canoe custom fitted stem bags might be even more advantageous, especially with pack straps for carrying.

I have a lot of odd shapes left on some remaining fabric, narrow angles and short rectangles, and one weird >=< piece, big enough to make something out of. In a dry bag shape it will only get me a /__\ taco wedge, 24 inches wide at the long end and 16 inches deep. That extra large scrap piece will not be wasted fabric.

Using as much of the leftover fabric as I could that made for a really weird template, but I cut it out, ironed it up and installed the webbing and buckles. What the heck is this for?

P9021188 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

If space was really tight it could stick that taco wedge up in an open bow stem.

P9021186 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I am thinking it is a shoe bag. As the Imelda Marcos of Glamping I often bring three pairs of shoes. Depending on the season either high top Mukluks or wet foot water shoes, boots or Gore-tex trail runners and some slip on camp shoes; moccasins, Crocs or even flip flops to help dry out my feet. I would not mind having all my muddy/sandy shoes in a separate dry bag.

P9031199 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

That odd little taco duffle fits my bigfoot size 13 mukluks (size 12 feet, plus synthetic liner socks under Sealskins), trail runners and Crocs and flip flops easily, which would leave me barefoot in camp. Eat your heart out Imelda.

I would not have made a dedicated shoe bag, but that large piece of odd scrap heat sealable fabric was too alluring.

 

[Guest]

OK, maybe I do have too much time on my hands. I have a box of too small to be of use heat sealable fabric. Blue, Yellow, Purple.

Red.

P9021190 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The flags on the back of my roof racked long boats (or lumber) are inelegant at best. And old red sock or rag at worst. I have an iron and know how to use it. Grommet kits too.

Red scrap pieces heat sealed over two-layers thick with E6000 beaded grommets for 70 MPH highway wind shredding resistance. Not too shabby, another use for that black reflective line. Knowing how much I like bright shiny things, a little piece of reflective tape experimentally on a couple of the flags.

P9021191 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

And of course the remains of DougDs oddly shaped waterbag, made into an equally odd flag.

P9021193 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

One flag goes in with the tripping truck gear to replace a sad red sock, one in the mail, a couple in the box of tie down ropes. If the reflective tape stays stuck amidst rain and highway speed flappage I will add little pieces of High Intensity reflective tape to each flag (and I kinda want to know what that flapping flash reflectivity looks like in the headlights of a trailing vehicle)

I still have a bunch of weird taper angled purple and yellow heat sealable fabric to play with. It is unusable for anything I can think of except maybe two-color prayer flags, maybe for use as a DIY camp wind direction indicators off the tarp.

I am too frugal to throw out those long angle pieces, might as well iron them up into something.

P9091217 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

While I was being waste not frugal I rolled all of the scrap rectangles from past DIY dry bag making to eliminate fold creases.

P9081215 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I have no idea what I might ever use that little stuff for, the largest rectangle is only 14 x 20, and most are much smaller.

 

[Guest]

I had no idea what to do with the too little heat sealable scrap. I do like the silly, two-color purple/yellow long taper scrap flags. On unfamiliar/hard to spot lake campsites I will hang a piece of surveyors ribbon at the water’s edge to help me find an obscure trail to camp after a day paddling explore. Or hang a more uniquely visible Duckhead flag at the water’s edge for friends planning to join me later on the trip.

Those little taper fabric flags are distinctive, and could be used time and time again. And could be clipped as “windsock” indicators to the tarp edges while in camp.

I have one long purple angle and a shorter blue angle piece in leftovers, and lots of little yellow, purple and blue scrap, though not much red left after making the car topping flags. All those scraps too uselessly small for making anything.

P9111219 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Or are those little heat sealable scrap pieces useless? The two remaining long tapered scrap pieces.

P9131220 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

And the some of the too-small scrap, heat seal ironed onto the reverse.

P9131222 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

My familiarity with nautical signal flag meanings is sadly lacking.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgur...hUKEwiV5vO-2rPdAhVsTd8KHZ-oBhoQ9QEwAHoECAkQBg

Those flags appear to garble something like “Desire to Communicate” and “Need Beer”

The alligator clips are for attaching the flags to a tarp edge. I hung one of the red cartopping flags, with High Intensity reflective tape affixed, outside in the wind and rain as a tape durability test, and will fly that one off the truck every I take a drive as an acid test.

If the reflective tape is still firmly attached after a couple weeks abuse I will put little squibs of that High Intensity tape on each flag.

That reflectivity might be nice when latter-than-planned arrivals show up after dark. Or, in Conk’s case, before dawn.