wtf tippy....

Afternoon everyone,
After 45 years of motorized boats, I bought a canoe again… I had a 17’ Pere Marquette square back when we married. 1968. Wife would shake so bad we would tip!
Have had 6 fishing boats until 2010, then nothing. 2 weeks ago I found and purchased a Wenonah Eco , 16,5" made of glass and Polyester resin. Made in 1980.
It spent it’s life in Oregon salmon and trout rivers and the Pacific shore. Then the BWCA waters called. Canoe had a hard life as owner ran into rocks to slow or stop canoe. Quite a few cracking areas, some 3/4" areas of missing gel from usual life. Bow and stern covers of gunnels shattered from drops at portage…
No big deal as replaceable!
But she is not stable AT ALL! I put a 5’ level on the bottom and it has quite the rocker ( guessing 1.75") and side to side is at least 3/8" aside.
While I’m an old guy @ 70 YO, I think a canoe is not out of the realm of my enjoyment! Went out with my son and grandson and it was so unstable they would not ride in it. They have ridden in canoes since '86.
Suggestions please , besides the wingman outrigger…
enjoy your day
dennis b

The Wenonah Echo was renamed the 16’ 6" Sundowner in the late 1980s. There was also an 18’ Sundowner. Of the two, the 16.5’ Sundowner was usually considered the more stable because it has a somewhat flatter bottom.

How much weight are you trying to put in the boat? Sixteen and a half feet is not all that big for a tandem canoe, and Wenonahs tend to become less stable if you load them beyond their optimal capacity because of their hull cross-sectional configurations. You might also look at the seat heights. Lowering the seats an inch or so can make a big difference in perceived stability. But no matter what, this type of canoe is not going to feel as stable as the typical square back.

I agree with Pete about letting us know something about the overall weight being carried here, but the first thing I wonder is if the main issue isn’t a matter of perceived stability versus actual, useful stability. A canoe that handles well in the water will move in some way with every move you make, no matter how small a movement that is, and you will feel it happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s in danger of flipping. With time, you can learn to feel comfortable letting the boat move beneath you quite a bit, or even forcing it to lean an extreme amount (for certain purposes which need not be elaborated on at this time). In general, if you can keep your head reasonably well aligned with your center of gravity (in other words, keep your body relatively vertical as seen from the front or back of the boat), and your center of gravity basically within the confines of the canoe, you should be fine. Two common rules of thumb which assure this condition are “keep your belly button over the centerline” whenever you are moving around inside the boat, and “keep your head inside the gunwales”. Another good rule is “do not brace your hands against the gunwales” when moving around inside the boat. You can do that if you are very careful to do it equally with both hands, but a beginner is likely to forget that lifting one hand while continuing to support yourself with the other will push the boat off-kilter and it will continue to roll in that direction until the unbalanced loading is corrected, and since the boat will roll quickly, in the blink of an eye, you might be in the water before you know what you did wrong. So for now, keep your weight on the bottom of the boat as much as you can, and not on the gunwales. If you can follow those rules and the water is not rough (rough water may call for some additional skills), you normally should not be in any real danger of flipping, regardless of what the canoe feels like to you at this time.

A hull bottom that has some curve to it (that 3/8ths inch per side that you mention) makes the boat feel more unstable on its axis in comparison to a flat-bottomed canoe, but the boat’s resistance to being leaned will progressively increase as the degree of lean increases, which gives a reassuring feeling once you learn to trust this feature. Flat-bottomed canoes in comparison, if leaned an extreme amount, become precariously balanced and unpredictable, in spite of feeling more stable when level. Also, a boat with a rounded hull profile is faster than a flat-bottomed one. Once you get used to a “lively” canoe with a rounded bottom, any flat-bottomed canoe will feel sluggish - a real dog in terms of paddling ease.

Oh, and here’s a thought that may be the most important of all. Where where you sitting when you went out with those two kids? If you are pretty heavy and were sitting in the back so that the kids didn’t properly counterbalance your weight, that creates a genuine stability problem. Was the bow of the canoe noticeably high? The stern seat is closer to the stern of the canoe than the boat seat is to the bow, so too much weight in the stern puts most of the displacement within the part of the boat that’s narrowing down to a point! You can’t expect that to be a stable condition. Load the boat so that one end is NOT noticeably higher than the other and that will provide an enormous improvement. If you are a big guy, that may require the addition of a center seat, or moving the stern seat quite a bit farther forward than where it is right now.

Thanks for your thoughts,
I weight about 225, son in bow goes about 195, grandson in mid , on floor weighs about 110. Seemed it should have been fine. I have some gelcoat work and have to install kevlar skid plates, the going out again.
Perhaps by then I’ll have the Wingman Outfitters outrigger I ordered . Their website shows a fine product.
(https://wingmanoutfitter.com/ ) My son has seen them being used in Puget Sound at Edmunds and has seen them also in the Columbia River near Wenachee .
I hope to use them on this Wenonah Eco in the Sound myself. Looking forward to crabbing.
enjoy your day, dennis b

Looks like you had your solution all along - you just should have told us up front that this was an ad for the Wingman Outfitters outrigger - would have saved Pete and GBG the trouble of trying to give you some answers. I can see how it might be a benefit for a fisherman, but as a solution for a perceived “tippy” boat, it wouldn’t be my first choice.

The boat is overloaded… Period… No 16.5 foot canoe can hold 550 with adequate freeboard. Learn Archimedes principle… And wear your PFD.s You will need them… You are serious about taking a severely overloaded boat into Puget Sound… Make sure your last will details are done.

I think you are overloading the boat, at least for your experience level. The Echo was designed to be more of a “pocket tandem” designed for smaller paddlers and lighter loads. You can read this old thread regarding the Echo:

http://forums.paddling.com/discussion/1149715/help-researching-wenonah-sundowner-166

Beware those maximum capacity figures published by some canoe manufacturers. They are often based on just loading up the boat in perfectly calm water until the top of the gunwale is 6" or less above water level. They give no indication of what it is like to sit in a boat that heavily loaded, let alone try to paddle it. The maximum capacity figures might be of some value in comparing overall hull volume and buoyancy, but can be very misleading. A tandem canoe with a 900-1000 lb maximum capacity might have an optimal weight capacity upper limit of half that, or less.

People have a much higher center of gravity than packs or some other ballast loaded in the canoe. People with high centers of gravity are likely going to require boats with more initial stability to feel comfortable in. When you have two or three sizable people in the same boat, it only takes one to grab the gunwales and tip the boat over with an inappropriate body lean.

Morning everyone,
Some thoughts and clarifications
I live near St Paul, MN. The St Croix river is within an hour. The river is lousy with smallies and the occasional musky and huge cats. I love them all. The canoe was purchased with the idea of fishing…alone.
The thought of the outrigger was brought on by the pics of guys fishing standing up near gunwales. Not as an ad! In the past I have spoken of Ruger M77s, Bosch and Porter Cable and Sawstop products, Skiller vests and Mercury tiller outboards on Lund boats. Not as advertising, just products I’d recommend to friends.
You have given me information I didn’t think of. The seats are mounted with rivets through the sides of canoe and I don’t really want to rebuild and have that much glass work. I’m was thinking this canoe would be perfect for me to fish, if overloading is the entire problem relating to being tippy. I should be able to paddle from center additional seat. Consider that the canoe my son has in Seattle was bought from a guy at a picnic table 2 doors south of the hardware store in Old Forge in '86. It is still being used and in no way is it comparable to a Wenonah. The bottom is flat. What the hell do I know?
Puget Sound is a dream I have after being there. Dreams also include LacSeul, the Ottawa River and Georgian Bay. Crab traps in the salt looked like fun.
Thank you for your knowledge, I hope to be back with some good reports in October/ November.
dennis b

I lived in Minneapolis for over 10 years and have paddled the St Croix quite a few times. The Echo was a boat that some paddled solo and I think it would probably serve you well as a solo fishing boat on that river.

I don’t know the exact nature of the seat hangers used on your canoe. If the hanger is an L-shaped aluminum bracket riveted to the sides of the hull, and the seats are mounted on the top of those brackets, you can lower the seat by around an inch or so by simply bolting the seat to the bottom of the bracket.

@kayamedic said:
The boat is overloaded… Period… No 16.5 foot canoe can hold 550 with adequate freeboard. Learn Archimedes principle… And wear your PFD.s You will need them… You are serious about taking a severely overloaded boat into Puget Sound… Make sure your last will details are done.

I disagree with that. My 16’ RX explorer can be loaded to the gills and still have plenty of freeboard. Here is a pic of me, at 240 lbs, my ex wife at about 140 lbs and probably 200 lbs of gear. We easily ran class 1 water with this load and paddled miles on Lake George with huge swells (of course we balanced it a lot better in those conditions, this was going downstream on the Oswegatchie were we weren’t that concerned perfect balance).

@dennis b said:
Morning everyone,
Some thoughts and clarifications
I live near St Paul, MN. The St Croix river is within an hour. The river is lousy with smallies and the occasional musky and huge cats. I love them all. The canoe was purchased with the idea of fishing…alone.
The thought of the outrigger was brought on by the pics of guys fishing standing up near gunwales. Not as an ad! In the past I have spoken of Ruger M77s, Bosch and Porter Cable and Sawstop products, Skiller vests and Mercury tiller outboards on Lund boats. Not as advertising, just products I’d recommend to friends.
You have given me information I didn’t think of. The seats are mounted with rivets through the sides of canoe and I don’t really want to rebuild and have that much glass work. I’m was thinking this canoe would be perfect for me to fish, if overloading is the entire problem relating to being tippy. I should be able to paddle from center additional seat. Consider that the canoe my son has in Seattle was bought from a guy at a picnic table 2 doors south of the hardware store in Old Forge in '86. It is still being used and in no way is it comparable to a Wenonah. The bottom is flat. What the hell do I know?
Puget Sound is a dream I have after being there. Dreams also include LacSeul, the Ottawa River and Georgian Bay. Crab traps in the salt looked like fun.
Thank you for your knowledge, I hope to be back with some good reports in October/ November.
dennis b

Is this a symetrical boat? If so, no need to move seats. Flip it around and paddle in the rear from the “front” seat. That will move you, the heavier paddler, foward a couple of feet. The front paddler will have a lot less leg room in that configuration but if you aren’t out all day, that might not be an issue. It will also be helpful paddling solo, but you might need to add some weight in the front by putting a cooler up there, or a few jugs of water. As you mentioned, adding a drop in seat that will move you toward the middle, may also help.

As others mentioned there is the issue of primary and secondary stability. Primary is how “tippy” the canoe feels at first. Secondary is how hard it is to actually flip it over. Boats with good primary stability often have poor secondary stability and vice versa. Every time I get in my canoe, even after 50 some years of canoeing, I feel a little trepidation at first. The boat seems “tippy” but after a few minutes I’m completely comfortable. Knock on wood, I haven’t tipped a canoe in over 30 years, and that was when I was purposefuly rammed by another canoe (my brother can be a bit of an ass).

If the water is warm, go out with your crew (wearing your PFDs of course) in shallow water and try to tip the boat over. You might be surprised by how much effort it takes to actually dump the canoe.

I bet it floats great without people.

The Echo is a canoe that many people never get comfortable in. It is night and day different from the 18' Sundowner though the Echo was renamed as a Sundowner shortly before Ev Crozier redesigned it as a 17' canoe and made it much more stable. The Echo is narrow for a 16'6'canoe and very fast for its length, but it gives up some initial stability and capacity for that speed. For a large guy it will be a very nice fishing solo, just put a real solo seat behind where the center thwart or yoke is mounted and convert the yoke to a removeable solo style mount. Ignore any advice to paddle this canoe backward, especially if it has bucket seats. For the three people you mentioned, the18 sundowner would work, but better yet is the 18 Champlain. The above comparison with a 16 Mad River Explorer is like comparing a minivan to a Camaro, they might be the same length, but their capacities are very different.
Bill