interesting system he has developed. Using water in a bag as a counter weight a nifty idea.
I enjoyed the beer story. I bought a new car once and my father in law said “My God I didn’t think new was in your vocabulary”. The house we live in now is in a quaint little town that French Creek runs thru and I found a house for sale that had been abandoned for several years and needed a lot of work got it for $24k and the total taxes are $350 a year. Took a year buying every item to rebuild the place except drywall off of Craigslist or other person to person. Free is best but cheap is good too and tax free is really good. We have nice place now no payments and canoeing out my back door. Oh did forget retired also.
Your daughters name for you made me laugh. When my son was in high school he would be going someplace with me in my old truck and I would see a pile of stuff piled at the curb and start to slow down to take a look and he would yell at me that he knows the girl that lives there and doesn’t want to commit social suicide with his dad picking thru her junk. I said but that push mower looks so nice and he said ya like the 10 you have already.
Good to know beer floats here I thought only light beer floated. I will think on the duct tape solution and keep my eye open for free floating beer. 
Thanks for the video I watched one of his a while back likely the one before this one and he was filling his bag and hanging it but didn’t have the side float bags in. In that video I thought he had too much of the bag in the water. What he needs it to get it higher and on a longer arm to counter his weight? I picture a telescoping thwart that you could pull out and hang a water bag from or stick a float on. I know it can be done with a paddle and tying it around the boat and such but a guy like this guy that is out in the open channel alone in cold water needs something fast and sure already rigged to go. Putting buckets into bags and filling and sealing them sounds like a lot of time messing around especially when he first flipped the boat with his side bags he didn’t have much water in there most of it came in when he pressed with his weight getting in. Seems like something rigged to flip out with a float ready to go and a stirrup and he could be back in quick.
I still haven’t tested my hook assisted reentry stirrup yet maybe this weekend. When I’m free finding someone to go along isn’t working and when I find someone the weather is bad. I started a thread and most didn’t like the idea.
I converted that OT147 to a solo so I have loads of room on both sides I don’t really use with sitting in the center. For me a high up inside sponson would do the job keeping scooped water out. Then I get to thinking the bolt on ones on the outside will work too. Seems like with outside sponsons most of the time the canoe won’t flip all the way over even if you do go out. I don’t know for sure though.
Here are a couple vids of side bags. I’m looking for a vid of flipping a canoe with foam sponsons if anyone knows of one?
Only if you pump helium into the floatation!
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Maybe, but note that this thread got revived after my separate post about a specific thread about Old Town Twin Herons. See Missing Buoyancy in Old Town Twin Heron
I found a US vendor for a nearly identical float bag as the first video (plus many other sizes):
They’re marketed for sailboats, so there may be a wider range of vendors for these bags (not just in the UK). I’m overdue to practice solo re-entries in my 16’ canoe, but reckon I’d benefit from the help of a side float bag.
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I have these for my Wayfarer and Scamp sail boats for moving them off the beach and added floatation in the Wayfarer though the boat doesn’t need extra to right it and sail the water out once moving again. The Scamp has more than enough built-in floatation. Very tough bags indeed. Expensive yes. If I feel the need for canoe sponsons these will fill that bill.
Beach Rollers - Duckworks Boat Builders Supply
I also have 2 pairs of ww float bags for my solo canoes that completely fill the ends. came with used boats I have bought in the past. Basically, they were free as I made money selling the boats latter without the bags.
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Thanks for posting the link.
Here are a couple more videos of side bags and how they work.
Figuring out how to lace them in and not having something so wide as to not be practical in a solo seat configuration is what I have been working on. In many ways the idea of sponsons on the outside solve a lot of problems. They do make a wide canoe even wider and can cause something to snag against them if you run areas where you are not out in open waters.
The ideal thing would be tall thin floatation that would fit down each side and be curved to a shape like the hull and readily attached without adding much weight. I’m a little surprised some company hasn’t made something like that to fit their canoes perfectly.
I have some 5” pool noodles that I keep looking at and wondering how I could make those into side floats for inside the hull.
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I was wondering if anyone had tried the pool noodle approach! Please keep us posted on what you learn.
A lot of people have used the 3” noodles and chopped them into lengths and stuffed them in wherever they fit for added flotation. I never saw the 5” around and they have a much larger cross section. I ordered (4) 5” x 72” length black ones on line and I no sooner got them than Wal-Mart had 5” red ones out so I bought 4 more. We have family that has pools so I figured if they didn’t work out I could donate them. Two rows of 5” would be about the perfect use of space in my canoe.
If I end up trying them I will post.
I’m waiting for the local stores to get the pool noodles in. It is a seasonal item. I have a pakayak and want to improve the fit. The boat is too wide for good boat to body contact. I need outfitting that I can take out easily (the boat can be broken down in pieces and the pieces fit inside each other and into a giant suitcase). I’m thinking pool noodles duct taped together are part of the solution. Less worried about flotation- boat has two sealed hatches. I’ve already flooded out one section (I put the boat together and left it partially unlatched) and didn’t notice until one of my paddling partners told me the stern was sinking. One advantage of having a sectional boat is that each section is designed to be water tight (provided you do all the latches).
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Might be easier to create padding by cutting up a flat wally world exercise mat or sleeping pad than by cutting up cylindrical noodles.
I’ve rethought the whole process. Since the boat will be overnighting for a week I’m messing with strategically placing a dry box behind the seat and then a sleeping bag to push me a bit forward and wedge me in a bit. Let you know how it goes.
I’m surprised it hasn’t yet been mentioned but the old school ww canoe paddlers used to use tire innertubes of somewhat appropriate sizes for bow/stern (trailer tire tubes) or center float bags (small tractor). Of course most tires are now tubeless but I think someplace that deals in farm equipment would likely still stock them. You’d have to come up with a decent method of securing them so they stay in the boat below the gunnels, but that’s the case with any flotation system.
Large blocks of Styrofoam epoxied together and carved to the inner profile of the hull would be another option.
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My first kayak was an innertube. Ah the good old days.
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Car, truck or tractor tubes are fine. They are odd shapes to fit to a canoe or kayak though and need to be pinched down likely to wedge them in where they need to go. I thought about them for a while before I thought of the peanut yoga balls. The balls are about the same material as a tube as far as weight and thickness and toughness. We have a couple round ones we roll our backs on and have had the one for at least ten years and never needed to add air. So they seal good.
Lately I have been thinking of inner tubes again and wondering if I cut one and sealed the cut ends how it would work as a side air bag in a canoe. Maybe a motorcycle tube. Haven’t tried it but was an idea I have been kicking around.
The round yoga ball when I stuck it under the deck of the kayak and then filled it molded itself pretty good to the shape of the opening. I think if I could sew a wedge shaped bag that was like the shape of the canoe it would do the same with a peanut yoga ball. The cylinder shape was a fair fill of the area though and the spaces it leaves I have gear I can get in them.
Also - I just remembered - in the Christopher Cunningham book Building the Greenland Kayak there’s a part of chap. 14 that gives instructions for making flotation bags using a heat seal-able nylon fabric and the source for that material is given in an appendix. I’ve not tried this myself but once you learn to use the stuff it would allow you to get that nice professional looking custom fit. I don’t know if it would be as sturdy as your yoga balls or inner tubes, but if you can make it, you could presumably patch it. I’d think you could probably get a copy of the book from the library (perhaps by request) and photocopy the appropriate parts. Just a thought that could hopefully prove helpful…
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You might be able to modify this inexpensive method to do what you want.
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The more floatation you have in the cockpit the better – especially when doing self-rescues.
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