How Heavy Is Too Heavy?

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…

@carldelo said:

@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…

There is an older branch of Artificial Intelligence called “Fuzzy Logic”. This would be a great candidate for getting a usable result from your “many variables”.

Some years ago at Lake Patagonia, I watched a woman in the 350# range drag a 9’ Swifty down the boat ramp, then squeeze herself into the cockpit, overflowing the thing. As she paddled off, water was over her bow and stern deck.

Now I realize that she thought it was good exercise, though to be honest you would have to paddle for weeks to burn off those two mcdonalds gutburger she had for lunch, but in that case, she really needed a much larger boat.

Each kayak has a Max Load sticker. My CD Whistler-145 had a load capacity of 400#!
When I am loaded with my clothes, PFD, personal safety gear, water shoes, hat… my total weight comes close to 200#
That leaves me 200# MAX for water @ 8.5#/gal, food, extra safety gear, camping gear, etc.
Now common sense suggests that I keep far away from the Max Load.

Although my Whistler WILL paddle if I exceed that load, the closer I approach that Max Load, the less safe and less maneuverable will be the boat. So I keep my gear below 175#, 150 if possible (I am not an ultralighter) when I am doing a week-long self-support camp trip.
For a day trip, my load is closer to 15# and that includes my first aid kits.

@Doug Gilliland said:
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.

That sounds sooooo like Derek! He was definitely a character and very interesting to paddle with!

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

He talks a lot of story between Rolls. Miss ya Bro /Jeff

:slight_smile: