A friend has discussed paddling Isle Royale in Lake Superior using SOT kayaks. This is a tried and true way of doing things, but I had an idea. I posted a thread a while back about canoe use in the ocean, and this is along the same lines, with a twist. If I had float bags in a canoe AND a battery and bilge pump, I could stay dry enough. I don’t know if the canoe would be inherently less seaworthy than the SOT though. Any thoughts? Thanks.
What’s wrong with a plain vanilla decked boat?
Canoeing is done on the Great lakes … with proper risk management.
You are probably better off with a spray deck rather than float bags. Bags help float a canoe higher when you swim but don’t keep water out. Personally, I wouldn’t trust a battery & pump is I was out to sea.
I guess I’d always thought of spray decks as being better than nothing but not great, though I’ve never used them. Spray decks keep a LOT of water out of a canoe, but a decked canoe doesn’t seem as safe as an SOT. I suppose I could use bags and a deck.
@music321 said:
but a decked canoe doesn’t seem as safe as an SOT.
Not true if you’ve got the right canoe, like a Kruger.
I would not want to use a sit on top in a lake with an average water temperature of 39 F. SOT’s are a wet ride and it’s a big windy lake besides being cold. Sounds like a bad idea to me.
@Rookie said:
@music321 said:
but a decked canoe doesn’t seem as safe as an SOT.Not true if you’ve got the right canoe, like a Kruger.
Good to know, thanks.
@willowleaf said:
I would not want to use a sit on top in a lake with an average water temperature of 39 F. SOT’s are a wet ride and it’s a big windy lake besides being cold. Sounds like a bad idea to me.
I was thinking I’d have to buy a dry suit for the trip, but Lake Superior isn’t near either of us. It might be better to try this plan elsewhere.
@music321 said:
I don’t know if the canoe would be inherently less seaworthy than the SOT though. Any thoughts? Thanks.
I don’t think a canoe is any less seaworthy than a SOT, but it is more difficult to get back into if you capsize. I don’t paddle SOT’s, but I think most people stand of fighting chance of getting themselves back on a SOT even in difficult conditions, which is why kayak fishermen around here are all on SOT’s. I know few people who can get themselves back in a canoe without help even in calm conditions, and you are probably not going to flip in calm conditions. A spray skirt might keep water out, but it would make it more difficult to empty the boat if you capsize. Bags won’t keep water out, but might make it easier to flip a swamped canoe back over. They also might take up room that you need to get back into the boat.
I don’t think a pump would be much help. My experience in the ocean is that once you get out of the break zone, you find rolling waves that don’t tend to break over the side to fill up the boat. A pump might make it easier to empty a swamped canoe once you get it back upright, but getting the canoe empty isn’t the problem. Getting back in it without swamping it again is.
I do take my canoe out in the ocean - two weeks each summer we take our family vacation down at the beach. I paddle pretty much every day as long as the weather and conditions cooperate, but I am pretty careful about where I go - no big water crossings, no paddling in big waves or stormy weather. If I can’t swim myself and my canoe back to shore, I don’t go. This was last year’s vacation.
Agree with rival51 - canoe is fine … with proper risk management.
The chief disadvantage to canoe is windage
But a sea canoe like a Sea Wind with its partial decks and spray cover for the rest of the opening is a tried and true Lake Superior traveler
The price is a bit off putting
I’ve done Superior in a large volume 18.5 foot canoe withoit cover and it was fine but a little more nerve wracking on some crossings
Back to what the original post said… I am not seeing a post by someone with any experience in traditional canoes in bigger water. Or maybe at all.
As above there are ways to handle traditional canoes in bigger water based on outfitting, training and experience. Re-entering one after a capsize solo is in my experience greatly aided by having pretty big (and they cost some) robust float bags. So in the worst case scenario you can get back into the thing, and it is still floating well enough to give you a shot at emptying out the water that re-entered with you before you capsize again. Trying a solo re-entry tired means one that is likely to be less dry. In difficult conditions odds are pretty good that you will be tired at the point of a capsize.
Re-entering a traditional canoe, especially with major float bags, gets way easier with two people. But again something you want to practice first, not try out the technique in a video for the first in a real situation.
Given the discernible experience of the person who posted this, I have to agree with others to take a hard look at the lower profile craft like the Kruger sea kayaks, with float bags and practice getting back in. It is still far from perfect but it seems to me to be a safer solution than a traditional more high-sided canoe.
Flotation bags in a canoe do absolutely nothing to keep water out of the boat. Packing the hull with as much bag as possible, leaving only the bare minimum of space for the paddler as some whitewater boaters do, will limit the amount of water that the hull will hold. But even then, there will be enough room for water that when fully soused, the boat will weigh so much as to be difficult to control.
As for reentering a canoe, flotation can actually make that more difficult as the hull rides much higher on the water and it is harder to get yourself launched over the gunwale. This is a demonstration that I have seen used in canoe classes. Reentering a canoe with no flotation is actually very easy. The boat simply turns over with most of the hull underwater and underneath the paddler, The problem of course is that you can do absolutely nothing with it once you reenter.
With enough battery power and multiple sump pumps you can empty water out of a boat fairly quickly but in order for that to accomplish anything, no part of the gunwales can be underwater. I know from experience that it is possible to have so much water in a canoe, even one with a lot of flotation, that the gunwales on both sides are under water amidships. At that point, pumps become useless.
I would say that on open water with sizable waves, an open boat is definitely less seaworthy than a decked boat or a sit-on-top. If you really wanted to use one in that setting, I would put bags in the boat as well as pumps, and cover it with a spray deck.
@pblanc My own actual experience with my own not-big-float-bag canoe and some other big-float-bag canoes in various rescue classes and messing around in a pond near home has not been the same as the first part of what you said below. Assuming re-entering includes the thing does not fully re-capsize halfway thru the process.
“Reentering a canoe with no flotation is actually very easy. The boat simply turns over with most of the hull underwater and underneath the paddler, The problem of course is that you can do absolutely nothing with it once you reenter.”
With major float bags someone my size has a prayer of the gunwales being high enough to empty out the boat. In favorable conditions when more water is not being dumped into the boat at the same time.
I suspect I am not the only one who has the higher risk of a capsize in unfavorable conditions though. 
well, if this happens, it will be with an SOT or power boat, and certainly a dry suit.
@music321 said:
well, if this happens, it will be with an SOT or power boat, and certainly a dry suit.
your butt will freeze
Have you paddled any of Superior?
When paddling that coast we can keep fresh food nicely chilled
I just looked up Isle Royale in Lake Superior - looks like to great place. I’d paddle that in a canoe any day if I had a good partner, a few friends to help with assisted rescues, and some flexibility in the schedule in the event of bad weather or rough conditions. Alas, I live a long way from Lake Superior.
I’d definitely leave the float bags and pump behind - where would you put your camping gear?
If the definition of sea worthiness is the ability to self rescue, then an open boat is definitely less seaworthy than a decked boat (if the paddler has practiced) or a sit-on-top. But I go back to rival51’s point - its more about experience and risk management.
@music321 said:
A friend has discussed paddling Isle Royale in Lake Superior using SOT kayaks. This is a tried and true way of doing things
A SOT is okay only if you plan to paddle the island’s inland lakes. The Isle Royale National Park Service has a different opinion about SOTs on Lake Superior:
“With numerous lakes, bays, and islands, Isle Royale National Park provides many miles of waterways for the experienced canoeist and kayaker. Small, open vessels are encouraged to use the numerous miles of waterways the inland lakes provide. Canoes should be at least 15’ long to navigate waters in large bays and not swamp in rough water. Recreational kayaks are not appropriate for Isle Royale’s marine environment - sea kayaks are recommended. Sea kayaks should be at least 15’ 8" to 19’ long for open water, and behave well in wind and waves.”
https://www.nps.gov/isro/planyourvisit/canoe-and-kayak.htm
Surely you recall this tragedy involving a SOT on Lake Superior and major errors in judgment: https://www.canoekayak.com/news/reflecting-on-the-latest-lake-superior-kayaking-tragedy/
Of course it is difficult or impossible to empty out a canoe without flotation after it has been reentered full of water or rolled back up and I am certainly not advocating that someone should avoid flotation so as to make the canoe easier to reenter. But the point is that a lot of flotation does not necessarily make the boat easier to either roll or reenter and too much can make it more difficult. This depends to some extent on the contour of the hull and the sheer line of the boat. In whitewater canoes with a lot of rocker and very high stems with float bags in the ends, the center of the boat can ride very high as it starts to come up from an inverted position and this can make it harder to get the body over the gunwale when reentering, or back over the hull when rolling. The hull essentially teeters on the high stems and wants to roll back upside-down or more commonly, on to its side.
Here is a video of a fellow rolling a tandem Royalex canoe with very little supplemental flotation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9A-aLYVJKo
That canoe actually does have some small end bags in it, contrary to the title.
The boat actually rolls up pretty easily because it remains low in the water and it is easy for the paddler to swing his upper body back over the boat. It would be equally easy to reenter for the same reason. But once it is back up, it is clear that the gunwales are nearly awash and it would be very difficult to empty even in very calm conditions. Without the end bags the gunwales would be submerged. With some hulls with less volume, the gunwales would probably be underwater after rolling back up. It is possible to remain in a canoe with that much water in it, and even paddle it back to shore, albeit very slowly, but it requires a fair bit of balance and it would be very difficult to control in any kind of rough conditions.
Call me biased (because I am) but having switched years ago from canoe tripping to sea kayaking, the latter is the only way I’d do this trip. I’d return to canoeing only for trips where portages are long and/or frequent.
dont discount sea canoes
They are different from both open canoes and kayaks and are especially intended for ocean use
Google Verlen Kruger, Herb Pohl
and Reinhart Zollitsch
Back before the advent of many mass produced kayaks, canoes were widely used
Because canoes are more difficult to handle in adverse conditions there was a lot of mentoring done
Quite a bit of time on weather study wave action tidal races etc outflow from rivers. reflecting waves and clapotis
The last three can be deadly if you have no escape planned
