Uncle Mur's Canoe Chronicles

[Uncle Mur]

Hiya kids, Uncle Mur here. Just getting back on the water after a few years ( decades)
Just picked me up a nice little Mohawk solo. I am comfortable in open or closed decks tandem or solo.
My preference is solo, something about taking on Mother Nature by ones self i suppose.
So when I found this little puppy advertised at 22lbs. I had to check it out. I have not weighed it personally yet but, yup it's light
Experience has taught me how uncooperative a swamped boat is, especially by your self. So I'm just in the process of installing some bags. I'll be venturing out on the water by myself for the most part and I'm an old boyscout ..."Prepared" you betcha Always! I've the "deepest" respect for the water, I've seen what it can do. So if I dont have to empty out a bunch of water and it keeps the boat on the surface
... sweet!
Did I mention I'm a "frugal" old codger who loves a cheap solution to the task at hand.
found these blue touring sized bags that work perfectly for about the same cost that the poly braid that I used to fab the cage and line the boat with.

 

[Uncle Mur]

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[Uncle Mur]

My boyscout equipment is coming along nicely.
swim tags, air bags laced in, anchor points fore and aft. Kneeling pad is an old anti fatigue mat I had lying around. Thought it matched the bags nicely Started fabbing up a pedestal seat as well, trimmed a couple of pieces of foam floor tile filled the shape with pieces of blue pool noodles and covered it with chunk of leather appolstery in scrap bin at the fabric shop for pennies. ... I was not going to pay 150$ for a piece of foam carved in the shape of my arse

 

[Uncle Mur]

Well I had the chance to take 'er on the maiden voyage tonight.
I'll call it a success, Didn't tip or sink! Huzzah!

 

[Uncle Mur]

Man I forgot how skttery an empty canoe is.
I started out with my saddle in place kneeling.
It's a comfortable position, the saddle I crafted works as planned. The trim was good but the little boat didn't like the center of gravity a whole lot. Felt quite tippy, more so when I sat up on the stool portion that is about gunnel height. My paddle skills with a single blade are way rusty lol. The canoe is light in the water, feels fast and nimble. My uncomfortableness kept me from trying a lot of strokes, almost dumped it trying to skull over to the dock. Anticipating this high center thing, I codged a bottom seat together with a couple of things that where laying about. My Mom battled arthritis for years before she passed. She had one facy arsed wheelchair with this special cushion for the seat. A Roho Dry Inflation Air Cushion, tied it to one of those bleacherseat cushions so that the Roho sits on the bottom and the cushion part of the bleacherseat rests against the twart perfectly as a backrest. As an added (planned) bonus, the pocket flap hooks over the thwart and hangs down behind the back effectively hooking the seat to the boat with zippered storage pockets to boot
So now, sitting on the bottom just aft of center, back pressed against the thwart, knees bent and my feet pressed against the bow thwart I just installed
took out the double blade and ...
The little boat liked that very much, but it gets a little wet using big power vertical strokes lol

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Mur, you've done a nice, creative and thrifty job outfitting that small canoe. However, if I may say so, you've outfitted it as a whitewater canoe -- float bags and a pedestal -- when the hull was actually designed as a so-called pack canoe for flat water.

Pack canoes are short, light and shallow in depth. They are intended to be paddled from a seated position on the bottom of the hull, usually with a double paddle. They are essentially open-deck kayaks. Yes, an experienced single blader with good balance can paddle a pack canoe with a single blade, but you'd either have to have a really short paddle when seated on the bottom, or you'd have to raise up the seat to get longer single blade paddle leverage. If you do the latter, you're elevated center of gravity will immediately make the boat feel tippy and insecure. Even one inch of vertical COG change can be felt.

The air bags are used in whitewater not so much to displace water in the hull as to float the canoe high up when, upside down after after a flip, it's banging its way down rocky rapids. The air bags help the upside-down, escaped canoe from wrapping around a rock and being damaged or destroyed. The bags are not needed to keep rain or occasional wave slop out of the hull. That's the job of a bailer and sponge. And, in any event, no one should be out in wind waves that can break over a canoe, much less a tippy pack canoe. That's the time to be on shore sipping some decaffeinated green tea.

Your canoe does have built-in end flotation tanks, which should be sufficient to float it in a flat water flip. After a flip, the water can easily be dumped or shaken out by the paddler in the water. The problem then becomes how to climb back into the tiny craft. Float bags won't help that maneuver and may even make it more difficult. Most of us who are over 40 and of less than ideal weight and fitness cannot climb back into a narrow solo canoe. Therefore, you will have to swim the canoe to shore, which should never be far away. Painter ropes on each end are crucial for this and other reasons.

Anyway, have fun with your new toy. Keep experimenting with different seating and paddling styles and outfitting approaches. It's all a learning experience in pursuit of recreational pleasure. If your interest in canoeing keeps up and increases, THIS and THIS may also happen to you.

 

[Uncle Mur]

Thanx for the fabulous input Glen.
... and yes I do see myself falling prey to those "This's" lol
Anticipating getting flipped trying to haul in a big Bass those bags I'm thinking should help and old dog do his Capistrano

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Welcome to the forum, Uncle Mur! Nice work on the canoe.

Hey Glenn - shouldn't we be updating those two lists?

 

[Robin]

Welcome Uncle Mur, Thanks for sharing your ideas, always good to see how others ideas come to life.

 

[Uncle Mur]

Hiya Kids, Uncle Mur here again. It's been rainy with a couple of good storms in the mix here lately.
Not very good paddlin weather, but good shop time.
Cruising through the web I found this rig by Wingman Outdoors, a pontoon deck with coolers as pontoons.
Looked kinda hokey at first glance, then I watched it in action. I was impressed. And i thought to myself that makes a beautiful fishing platform out of a canoe. Complete with insulated storage in a rugged bouyant pontoon. ....
Well, cleaning the shop I came across a bunch of aluminum ballasters scavenged from a job years ago. Nice 3/4" black powder coated square tube 30" long, and some lovely oak slats from the kids old bunk beds 3/4"x3"x30" and some cedar fence boards in the wood rack. All I needed was a couple of coolers Lol. Within the week I'd found a pair that would work in a clearance bin. Bingo!
Realizing my little boat didn't warrant the fuulsized version with 48qt. coolers and full plywood deck
I scaled down to an 18qt. sized cooler.
Fabbed up the deck with some cedar and oak sitting on a pair of the aluminum tubes just under 2' square.
fastened oak blocks that wedge the deck in place with the gunells. Next two pontoon arms fashioned from the square tube. Double beam arms to the pocket fastened together with some sweet gussets of polished checker plate aluminum and rivets.
They slide in and out guides that lock them to the deck parallel to the hull. It's all modular and packs up into a very carriable package of about 3-4lbs. For the test run everything was just lashed in position.
Everything setup like planned, mounted it in a forward position about the point where center and bow meet.
installed the kneeling saddle and grabbed the single blade that almost sucked me over the last time I was out. Tied at the dock it sat perfect, trimmed nicely the coolers sitting just above waterline in balance.
I "stepped" into my little canoe that was the skittery thing that liked a kayak style of life last test and ... Holy Cow!! I kneeled down pushed off and set the paddle to work. Coolers hung balanced just out of the water only dipping for a moment as I grabbed water with the paddle. The rig did steal a bit of space for big sweeps, but you could reach deep and pull a bunch of water. And when I sat up on the stool part I planned to fish from. It's at gunnell height just behind the rear thwart. You had full reach for good strokes and the pontoons acted little to impede results.
It was fabulous, that ultralight little pac job is now an ultralight fishing platform that's still paddlable.
​​​​​​​

 

[Uncle Mur]

Static sitting position

 

[Uncle Mur]

Reaching out over the water, head and shoulder out of the boat holding the phone half a foot off the water.

 

[Uncle Mur]

Reaching out behind, I can't believe how stable it is now.

 

[Uncle Mur]

Looking backwards, Switching positions is now comfortable and safe. And it paddles not bad backwards too.

 

[Uncle Mur]

^

 

[Uncle Mur]

In fact I see some standup polling happening perhaps

 

[Uncle Mur]

The kit breaks down in minutes and all fits in the van.
.... well ok, the last 5" of the canoe pokes out the back
... and the kayak style seat in the bottom right of the shot ...
Moms 670$ cushion from her wheelchair lol I love a good repurposing.
The pond was pretty thick with Duckweed but in the litte bit of open water the boat glided along nice with a clean J stroke. This just expanded the capabilities of the little boat greatly. A little more tweeking and a test on some moving water maybe in order

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

That's a new one on me. Very creative. I wonder if there's a way to streamline those rectangular coolers when they're in the water creating drag. Some sort of fabricated pointy prow.

 

[Uncle Mur]

Thanx Glen, I watched this style of system in the wingman promo stuff go through what I would call class 3 haystacks in a competition and strapped to a big 17' with the bow paddler in a lawn chair and a 70lb black Lab bouncing around the deck do class 1&2 stuff and actually navigate not just go with the flow. With some practice and not grabbing big water I noticed how litte they actually touched water.
lol, I did notice when I got the coolers that the bodies have a very hydrodynamic shape ... for a cooler
there is a nice camber to the lower edge and a slight concave shape to the bottom.
.... more testing is definitely called for

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I watched some of those Wingman Outdoors videos. Man, they were running big 3-4 stuff on the New River.

That made me think of a possible risk, which may never arise in your case. If the coolers have wimpy or weak latches, they could come open in a near flip. If so, the coolers could begin to fill up, and maybe lose their contents, and make the swamping and bailing situation even more complicated. So, strong cooler latches, or some fastening system such as straps, would likely increase safety and integrity.