How Heavy Is Too Heavy?

@Celia I have been playing with the seating to get my body weight where I want it in relation to the buoyancy of the hull. Rolls nice. Took the original seat out, tried a foam seat, then tried a gel seat , then tried a thermorest self inflating seat. Took out all the thigh brace foam that the former owner had in it. Put some back in. took it out rolling between each change. Then did the next change. Hips are next. I like them a bit loose, but not too loose. Having some rotator cuff issues so had to quit for the day. This is a very fun kayak. The first time I paddled it, I was on Lake Superior…now I’m doing all the fitting on an inland lake so it’s a bit warmer to roll for a few hours and test.

I’ve been paddling Nordkapps for over 20 years…This seems to be one of the best. IT"S a KEEPER

I was talking about touring boats and touring conditions, not race-specific boats or racing at all, to begin with. Note that I said “similar boats”, as in touring or sea kayaks.

This excerpt (a report on a high performance Cape Falcon Kayak F1 SOF designed by Brian Schulz) better describes the performance characteristics of a skin on frame in challenging conditions than I can – the author in one instance was out with two other paddlers in high end composite sea kayaks, an NDK Explorer and Tiderace Xcite, and the F1 outperformed those in 30 mph winds and rough water.

https://www.adventuresportsnetwork.com/sport/paddle-sports/canoe-kayak/rides-david-bixbys-cape-falcon-f1-skin-on-frame-kayak/

Roym, I am glad to hear you are enjoying the boat! Jim loved how it went thru the water, it is slick, and I adored how it rolls. One of a handful of boats I had to stop with the paddle to avoid window shading. And that was with a very loose fit and no foot contact.

I have kept the Nordlow hoping to have a season where I could really take it out. But I want my roll solid on both sides before I do that. Unfortunately I started recovering from the loss of kayaking time due to Jim’s illness just in time for my stepmother’s health issues to ramp up. The latter is finally heading towards a more sane resolution and it looks like I will have the pool time I need this winter to get my left side back in operation. I am looking forward to that.

@Celia Sits on the water like a praying mantis. What’s not to like B)

Roy, it is a sharp looking set of colors too. Too pretty for me, with my sloppy habits a white hull is better…

If you ever pass through SW Pennsylvania I’d be glad to offer you a test drive in my West Greenland SOF, built by Dawa Nordrup of Monkcraft Kayaks out in Oregon.

@Glenn MacGrady said:

@bnystrom said:

@Glenn MacGrady said:
Any solo canoe or kayak that is over 45 pounds is too heavy.
This is complete BS, as it eliminates all but a handful of commercially made sea kayaks. Utter nonsense!

Your response provides no objective and little subjective guidance on the topic question: How much weight is too much?

If YOU need lightweight boats due to physical limitations, that’s fine; nobody is going to argue with you. However, stating that “Any solo canoe or kayak that is over 45 pounds is too heavy.” as some kind of hard and fast rule for others is just plain ridiculous and has zero basis in fact. Millions of people are happily paddling heavier boats.

You want heavy? Concrete canoes run about 300 pounds each. Yes, they are a thing and there are entire organizations devoted to designing, building and racing them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_canoe

“Too heavy” is subjective and personal.

@willowleaf said:
“Too heavy” is subjective and personal.
Exactly.

Roym, do you really roll “for a few hours”? About one hour is plenty for me.

What is too heavy for one person not only differs from one person to another, it also can change over time.

I’ve always been happy paddling boats in the 55-60 lb range and still enjoy doing so. However, CARRYING them is another matter. That weight always felt borderline for me. A few years ago I stopped shouldering it, period. Using a portage cart and a trailer minimize the need to lift and carry. Unfortunately, any real carrying now means I need my husband to help, which limits my days on the water. And we both are tired of schlepping the weight when it is possible to get something lighter.

The limit is set mainly by affordability and what lightweight boats are available that we like. Affordability is a bit less of an issue than it was 15 years ago. Now the task is to scope out other boats.

@bnystrom said:

@willowleaf said:
“Too heavy” is subjective and personal.
Exactly.

Disagree. I’d say “too heavy” is more likely to be objective and personal.

For example, if your boat hurts your back or shoulders or excessively tires you when portaging, carrying to the water, or even lifting onto a vehicle, your problem is objectively true and not just subjective. So also for racers in all disciplines: lighter boats objectively outperform heavier ones. Finally, as Pikabike notes, light weight can come at a heavy price, and that can be another form of personal, objective problem.

I am, obviously, an advocate of light weight in boats, paddles and gear. But paddling is also about aesthetics and historical traditions, so I do admire and own heavy wooden canoes. The objective problem is, I no longer use them because they are too much of a hassle to wrestle with.

SOFs are light, so I favor them for recreational paddling (if not racing). And I’d like to give them some whitewater credit I had forgotten about. In the beginning there was only wood. Aluminum came to canoes after WWII. Tom Johnson gets credit for making the first fiberglass canoe around 1941, but the material wasn’t commercially popular until the 50’s.

Meanwhile, whitewater boaters of the 30’s and 40’s were using plywood stitch and glue hulls and folding boats such as Kleppers. Walter Burmeister, who wrote the massive guidebook Appalachian Whitewater ran rivers in a Klepper. Folding boats, although destructible, could flex and take the routine rock bangs better than wooden ones. It wasn’t until the availability of aluminum, then composite construction, and then plastics that folding boats disappeared as regular river runners.

@ Pikabike Yes, I enjoy rolling and stretching in a kayak…it’s like tai chi or yoga when done in a relaxed mode. and interspersed with Balance bracing .Very much a form of meditation where there is nothing except you, the kayak and water. Slow motion Greenland Style Rolling. {glide into the water, don’t fall into the water} {When I don’t have time to paddle out to the Islands in The Apostles, this is time well spent YMMV} {when I have an entire day, I paddle}

67.34 lbs

That’s it. No argument about it. Anything less it’s not too heavy. Greater than or equal to and it’s much too heavy.

Well, ok, strictly speaking it’s 67.3382 but I hope you’ll forgive my rounding it for simplicity’s sake.

That’s ok. BUT , I think the ideal 30 lbs. What were we talking about? I lost track 2123 words ago.

This discussion (and many others on this site) remind me of a story about Derek Hutchinson - author, instructor, boat designer and expedition kayaker.
At a symposium he stated that the proper length for a sea kayak was exactly 16 feet 10 inches. When Frank Goodman (founder of Valley Canoe) questioned him how he came up with that length, Derek explained that the length could not be any greater because his garage was 17 feet long.

Speaking of light boats, somebody on our local Craigslist is selling a homebuilt 14’ x 28" Snowshoe Arrow skin on frame pack canoe that only weighs 20 pounds. For $625 that’s a very affordable light boat – pretty too.

https://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/boa/d/bethel-park-ultra-light-canoe/6947801195.html

@Sparky961 said:
67.34 lbs

That’s it. No argument about it. Anything less it’s not too heavy. Greater than or equal to and it’s much too heavy.

Well, ok, strictly speaking it’s 67.3382 but I hope you’ll forgive my rounding it for simplicity’s sake.

Let’s call it 67.3 lbs. As the head of our NavArch program has been saying for 35 years: “we got to the moon and back on three significant figures based on the slide rule calculations of engineers in short-sleeved shirts, and it’s still good enough today…”

For myself, I think my new max acceptable weight is 35.0 lbs, and 20 is better. That Arrow looks tempting but it’s 7 hours away…

@carldelo said:
For myself, I think my new max acceptable weight is 35.0 lbs, and 20 is better. That Arrow looks tempting but it’s 7 hours away…

You are hereby nominated to design an equation for this. May I suggest that the result should probably be inversely proportional to age? Height and mass might play a role. There are probably some other creative variables to take into consideration…

@Sparky961 said:

@carldelo said:
For myself, I think my new max acceptable weight is 35.0 lbs, and 20 is better. That Arrow looks tempting but it’s 7 hours away…

You are hereby nominated to design an equation for this. May I suggest that the result should probably be inversely proportional to age? Height and mass might play a role. There are probably some other creative variables to take into consideration…

I’ll definitely look into it, many variables to consider…