Tie Down strength on Wenonah ultralight

“Speculation”

– Last Updated: Mar-20-13 7:36 PM EST –

Well, g2d knows way more about attaching tie-downs and other modifications than I do, and I'd never question his choice of materials or adhesives or working methods. However, the ways in which sheet-like materials can be made more rigid by means of adjusting their shape or adding "beams" of specific shape is not a matter of speculation. The basic principles are pretty simple. It only gets complex when they are designed for a particular type and magnitude of load. From what you say, I don't imagine you "see" these things when you look at the world, but examples are everywhere.

Manufacturer's won't or can't always tell you what you want to know about additions or modifications. Here's a perfect example: I had a 1980 Subaru years ago, and Subaru specifically told me that under NO circumstances should a trailer hitch be installed, because the body of the car "wasn't suitable" for hitch installation and because the car "wasn't capable" of pulling a trailer. We built a trailer hitch anyway, from leftover scraps of steel that were at hand, and designed it to attach at three of the best-reinforced locations on the car body, with the hitch frame between those locations being strong enough to insure that any stress was spread between the attachment points, all using the same principles I applied in my post above. Not only did the car pull trailers weighing 700 or 800 pounds with ease (it turns out that Subaru's official statement about this was dead wrong!), but the hitch became a handy place for jacking up the whole rear end of the car when necessary (Subaru was dead wrong about this part too, though in actuality I realize they have to assume that some people are like you, and can't figure out how to do such things properly so their official stance has to be "don't even try"). Related to that, near the end of the car's life it got rammed from behind hard enough to drive the drawbar of the hitch nearly through the bumper of the other car (the other car was mid-size, but large by today's standards, and bumpers were made of steel in those days too, not plastic). The drawbar of the hitch was slightly twisted by the impact, but there was no damage whatsoever to the body of the Subaru (I checked extremely closely - NOTHING on the car got even the slightest bit bent).

My "speculation" about the effect of a material's shape on its strength didn't just allow my car to tow light trailers and make it convenient to lift the back end of the car, it made the difference between the car being totaled in the wreck compared to having no damage at all, other than to the exposed portion of the hitch itself (that's a pretty good result simply from the "thoughtful" addition of about 25 pounds of scrap steel, huh?). But oh yeah, it's always better to put all your faith in the manufacturer and their official advice rather than rely on your own ability and common sense.

Some thoughts

– Last Updated: Mar-20-13 3:37 PM EST –

Two of my canoes have tie-downs for packs, but the method for attaching them to the hull is different so I'll leave that part out. I'm actually pretty certain that the area in the chine of of the hull (where the greatest curvature is) will be a good, strong location. Coincidentally, in most parts of the boat that will also be right along the edge of your foam core.

I use four tie-downs per pack location, in a square pattern. I use rope, looped over the pack in the form of a diamond-hitch. It's secure, tightens with sort of a "pulley" action, and the packs stay in place pretty well. With four attachment points contributing, the tightness of the rope at each attachment point isn't all that great (shall we call it "moderate"?). It need not be as tight as you can make it - just "sort of snug" works pretty well. Don't forget that your packs will float, and in a swamped canoe they won't create nearly as much force on the tie-downs as would be the case if you were rolling the boat back and forth on dry land. The canoe, which is very light, will be "the rag doll shaken by the dog", with your packs being the dog. In other words, the packs will be the major mass you are handling, and the canoe will just be along for the ride, as far as weight and stress goes. It won't be near as bad as you expect.

If you want, you could avoid anchoring your bag straps over the foam core. You could use two anchor points, on opposite sides of the boat, and have the strap split into an inverted "Y" where it comes off the end of the bag. The split "Y" could be made of rope more easily than strapping material. As I mentioned above, I don't think your float-bag straps will see that much stress. I'd probably use two anchor points (not over the foam core) just to be safe, but that might be overkill. Even providing two tie-downs ON the foam core would cut the stress at that location by roughly half.

You’re looking for a stiff attachment
point, but stiffness doesn’t matter as much as choosing a place where the tie won’t get in synergy with other stresses to cause damage.



The stiffness of the chine, and its contour, make it vulnerable to two kinds of damage, blows from outside and closure of the chine angle if the bottom of the hull is forced upward. For longevity of the chine, one might not want to have tie pads laid onto the inside of the chine. I have two composite boats with thin hulls, foam reinforcement of the bottom, and one with Spheretex ribs up the sides. I wouldn’t put tie points on the chines of either one. I would prefer to put tie points up above the chines on the sides, or in one case to mount them on the bottom of the triple saddle.



As Mr. Guide pointed out, an ultralight canoe shouldn’t see the sort of use that would make tie point location critical. But if one ever has to do serious repairs on an ultralight, it will be much easier if there aren’t tie points epoxied to places like the foam core, the core margins, or the inside of the chines.

Dave, Kevlar is often a better “inside”
cloth because of its strength in tension. Another benefit is that while glass may yield tiny shards, Kevlar will not. But glass cloth can be used for inside tie points. I’ve used it for thigh straps in decked c-1s and have not gotten itchy knees.



I admire your ambition in planning dumping, swamping, emptying and reboarding drills. I roll c-1s and kayaks, but I don’t bother with whitewater open canoes. And with tandems on lakes, my strategy is to avoid swamping or capsizing. It’s worked so far.



Perhaps it won’t matter where you install your tie points, as long as you consider possible maximum stresses. Though I have a Bluewater tandem with a foam core, I don’t think much of that construction. If one wants a lake canoe, the maker should arch the bottom more markedly and brace the bottom vertically against the thwarts. They sometimes do that in marathon racing canoes.

I was thinking about that last night…
… and I could envision situations were anchoring inside the chines might not be best, as it would create a zone of compression rather than tension and the hull might be less resistant to crumpling than stretching. Also, it might tend to not involve the full contact area of the anchor pad. For this particular boat though with its ultra-light hull, I think we may now be in agreement that the parts of the hull which are not stiffened (as well as the part over the top of the foam core, even though overall that’s a stiff location) are likely to be quite “floppy” when pulled on by tie-downs.

I assumed an ultra-light to be paddled
… and treated like an ultra-light. I would agree that on a WW boat that could be expected to take some chine hits I would not want to add those stresses.



Maybe it would be better to pull at more of an angle than the 90 degrees I think we’ve been considering. I’m thinking of the angle of pull similar to upper thigh strap anchors.

Not really

– Last Updated: Mar-24-13 12:22 PM EST –

POINT 5 below is incorrect. I apologize, especially to guideboatguy. I had guideboatguy confused with another poster. I leave the post intact, so everyone can follow along. guideboatguy is actually gives pretty solid advice on canoes and canoeing.

Matt might have been rude (but, I don't think he was), but he was correct. I am an actual honest to god real life structural engineer with 20 years experience in light weight structures. Whenever I see the word "engineering" come up in a paddling.net post, I usually see some "bad engineering".

As an engineer, here's what I would do.
1. Reassess whether your idea is worth it considering what the boat is. It doesn't sound like it is worth it.
2. Call Wenonah and ask them.
3. If that didn't work, I would call Wenonah and ask them again.
4. g2d generally gives pretty solid advice. I've even used some of his suggestions before and found them accurate. I don't know his background, but he clearly has a lot of hands on experience messing with boats.
5. guideboatguy advice is to be taken with a big grain of salt. I mean no disrespect and I am not being rude, but when he starts doing engineering calculations...well, it's not good, from an engineers point of view. Now, he's going to get pissed off at me for saying that, and I can live with it.... We've gone through it before.

I’m not mad, but I have a question
What calculations are you referring to? Based on the assumption that you want the anchors to be on a stiff part of the hull rather the floppy parts which will flex severely in response to very small amounts of force, what was incorrect? I’m open to the possibility that unexpected forms of failure might be possible when subjecting the stiff, more-curved parts of the structure to extreme force, but even g2d seems to acknowledge that this isn’t a situation where such forces will be a concern, and interfering with the repair of collision damage wouldn’t seem to be an issue in this case either. If you think, or even if Wenonah thinks, that anchoring to the floppy locations on the hull must surely be better, I’d love to see how that would turn out. I’ve seen a couple of lightweight canoes with such accessories installed, but at the time I didn’t have a reason to remember where the tie-downs were placed, and no reason to ask the owner how happy he was with the job either.

its a general comment
about your engineering logic having seen many of your posts. You need to be careful, because you do talk a good enough game that some people might believe you as gospel and do some damage…watch out for unintended consequences. For instance, in this case you viewed the area where the two skins converging over the edge of the foam to be something like “half of an I-beam”. A few problems there. I-beams aren’t designed to be loaded in tension on the flanges…the flanges are there to stabilize the web (half I-beams are shitty things to mess with anyway, but that’s a different matter). More importantly, it’s structurally NOT half an I-beam, but, in 2-D a wishbone with the anticipated load pulling the two legs of the wishbone apart. That’s not good, because there is a stress multiplier where the two skins (legs of the wishbone) meet. Assuming the foam to be of minimal strength in tension, the load goes to the skins (leg of wishbone), the stress seen at the crotch of the wishbone is 2,3,4 or more times what simple calculations would show, and voile, you pull the skin laminations apart…oops. As an engineer, my first move would be to call Wenonah and make an inquiry as to where to put the attachments…because, I don’t know for sure where the best place to put the attachments is, but they most likely do. There’s at least an hour into this whole forum line, some of it is okay and some of it is wrong. Wenonah might actually have a 1 minute answer to the question. In engineering, you don’t engineer what you don’t need to engineer. “I don’t know” is a really good phrase for any engineering student to learn and use…keeps people from getting hurt.

Let’s try it a little simpler
Forget the pack. Certainly having anchors for air bags would be worth doing.



Using your engineering education and experience, where would you predict the best place would be for the anchors? On the ribs, off the ribs, where in proximity to the ribs?

That’s all good

– Last Updated: Mar-22-13 10:05 PM EST –

I tend to deal with general principles more than details, though at times I get persnickity about details and definitions so I don't mind you doing the same regarding the "roughly illustrative" terminology I chose. Anyway, the "near-vertical" portion of fabric on the edge of the foam core IS stabilized on both edges (top edge by the wrap-around over the core, and bottom edge by its junction to the main hull), so don't take the "half-I-beam" term to the extreme of ignoring what that part of the hull actually looks like. My use of a poor name doesn't magically create a free-standing web of material that wasn't there before.

Actually, none of your details about the complex failure of a "Y" shape goes against the overall idea I was getting at, which is that the rather flat, panel-like portions of the hull will be floppy when subjected to even the smallest point loads while those associated with any kind of sharp curvature or three-dimensional shape will be much stiffer. Lightweight hulls like this are still amazingly strong as a whole, and are not that easily damaged EXCEPT on the flat panels, so I can't imagine breaking the stiff parts of the hull with the tension applied to tie-downs (that's already been pointed out and not just by me). The need to stress any part of the boat even remotely close to failure on flatwater just seems like fanciful thinking to me, and if that's the case, the choice boils down to that between a connection that allows the hull to flex all over the place and one that doesn't. Nothing wrong with asking Wenonah, but I suspect all the people who've suggested avoiding the flat-panel parts of the hull in favor of the stiffer areas will turn out to be correct.

punch line
for airbags, it just won’t matter much. Design-wise, put them somewhere off of the ribs…just so they are more out of the way when the bag is not in use. Position them where they hold the airbag securely. Structurally, the boat is good for sliding over a beaver dam, a round submerged rock, log, etc. Without wasting time doing any math, the load from the airbag attachment will be less than those normal mishaps. My previous comments were more about misleading “engineering” knowledge, so to speak.

If you want extra credit, do the math, figure the airbag volume, figure the weight of the water it displaces (thats the upward load on the hull). Assume each tie down takes a fair share (not correct, but close enough) of that…it’s gonna come out less than loaded canoe sliding over an unseen rock.

But a 45 pound pack tied in at a couple
… points is in a much different category altogether?



Sorry. I’m not buying it.

I don’t buy it either

– Last Updated: Mar-23-13 6:05 PM EST –

When swamped in flatwater, with both the pack and the hull buoyed by water, there won't be any way to create the kind of stress on the tie-downs that would be worth a second thought. One example to illustrate this is a scenario that would be far worse than anything you could do in the water, and that's to suspend the canoe upside-down in the air while the pack remains tied to the floor. For a 45-pound pack attached to four anchor points (four is a likely number since that's what you need if you really want the pack to "stay put" while manhandling the boat up and down the riverbank or over beaver dams), and with the anchor points positioned so that the ropes are relatively vertical in the clear space between the edges of the pack and the floor, there would be only 11.3 pounds of tension applied to each tie-down. You could make the example worse and turn the boat on its side so that the ropes are now oriented in the worst-possible direction and the tension on them increases greatly. I don't want to mess with figuring out the tension, but having seen similar situations I think you could get by with kite string instead of rope, so once again I can't believe there'd be enough pull on each anchor point to endanger the hull. We aren't using boats made of egg shells. In fact, most of us probably don't even bat an eye if our 220-pound buddy decides to use our overturned hull as a chair, and that's far greater strain than the worst-case situation used as examples here (artificial, non-buoyant situations).

Edit:
Oh, now I see Mrmanners' answer to Clarion. Like him, I thought "forget the pack" was a way of saying that attaching it would be too stressful on the hull and it shouldn't be attempted, just like I thought mrmanners' reasons for NOT using the stiff parts of the hull (which I only suggested using to eliminate the unavoidable floppiness that you'd get anywhere else) were that they were damage-prone. I think the most important point which I tried several times to make was ignored until just now, and that's that just because someone wants to make use of one part of a structure that is stiffer than another doesn't mean one intends to apply a totally unrealistic load.

Like I said
My original points in this discussion were about bad engineering being tossed around. The pack, the airbags…they’re both insignificant. Glue the tie downs where ever you want.

it’s a lot of weight…y/n? even for a
hull that might, at first, seem to be easily rollable…maybe not, just my $.01. I usually do the old tether routine. Making it easier to roll/recover…then you can reel in the pack(s). If not for rolling, but portaging I’ve found that having a bizarrely(sp?) scuppered area in the gunwales for tying in…effectively hanging stuff I can’t carry. Granted it takes time for preventative gunwale upkeep, but makes portaging easy.

Apology to guideboatguy
My sincere apology to guideboatguy. Earlier in this long series of posts I read him the riot act on “bad engineering”. It occurred to me today that I had him confused with another frequent poster.



In fact, while I disagreed with some of his logic on this topic, guideboatguy, now that I have him properly identified in my shrinking brain, actually gives pretty sound and useful advice on canoes and canoeing.



Once again, my sincere apology.

Now, I have a nice dinner of crow waiting, once I get my foot out of my mouth and my head out of my you know where.

Hey, no problem, but thank you.
Thanks. Also, I’ll admit I’m a bit less confused now. I tried to remember the incident you mentioned at the start, and I just couldn’t remember ever responding to you in anger before, so naturally I thought MY brain must be shrinking. Actually, I’m pretty sure it is, but perhaps what I believed must have been a forgotten argument never even happened, which is a nice thought.



I’ve eaten crow here before too and never enjoyed it. It makes me wonder where the expression comes from, and if crows really that taste bad. Believe it or not, I actually have an old book about hunting skills with a page that’s titled “Why Not Eat Crow?”, where there’s a promising-looking recipe for the big black bird.

Summary of my learning from this thread
I called Wenonah customer service. The fellow I spoke with was very personable and knowledgeable. The discussion naturally zigged and zagged a bit. At first, he said to avoid the foam if you can. Then, he pointed out that the footbraces are on the foam. We talked about how the seats are attached to the foam core hull, and how much force that exerts. By the end of our chat, he seemed to suggest that the placement probably would not matter.



So, that is about how I expected it would go. Evidently, there are pros and cons to the placement. Most everyone does not expect that the force exerted will cause damage at any location. I think much stress could ensue in big wind and wave swamping conditions with possibly multiple reentry tries, assisted rescues, and the like. To a point, I will see it for myself this summer in warm water when I practice swamp and reentry.



Some may see this question as too detailed or persnickety. For me at least, this has been very worthwhile, especially considering a failure of the tie down points could either be life-threatening or damaging to an expensive canoe.



Here is my summary of what I have learned from this thread, including new things I would not have otherwise thought about or known to ask about:


  1. It is probably best to avoid areas of foam, but it probably won’t matter;
  2. Kevlar is better than fiberglass for this application;
  3. There is a technique to cutting kevlar (and presumably fiberglass) with scissors;
  4. Oval not rectangular patches probably work and look better (doh!);
  5. Put down one or two layer kevlar/fiberglass patch(es) before not after epoxying down the strap (this is counterintuitive to me and I am still processing it);
  6. Four attachment points per pack in a diamond hitch, snugged down, sounds about right;
  7. I can avoid putting one air bag attachment point in the center of the hull by using a strap split into a “y” coming off two attachment points. I’ve see that in outfitting on whitewater boats, and it makes sense for my purposes here. (Otherwise, whitewater outfitting solutions have not proved optimal at all for me on composite lake tripping boats).



    Happy and safe paddling to all. Dave

Misc
2) Kevlar is better than fiberglass for this application;



I’d like to hear the reasoning, hand layup with glass is easier for a beginner. If you use Kevlar put peel ply over it.





5) Put down one or two layer kevlar/fiberglass patch(es) before not after epoxying down the strap (this is counterintuitive to me and I am still processing it);



The layers of cloth under the strap help spread the load out so there’s less bending of the underlying laminate where the strap is attached.





The issue with the seat and footbrace attachments is that the forces are primarily shear and not pulling. I could see a well epoxied 1" webbing strap pulling the thin interior laminate away from the foam with repeated tugs but a few layers of cloth would spread the stress over a larger area.



I’d be inclined to use 3"x5" oval glass patches of one or two layers of 6oz glass cloth oriented vertically at the edge of the floor core where the hull is doubled material and very stiff. Webbing loop glued down like an upside down T.