C-Forum

Got into a discusion about electric bilge pumps with a gent over on P-net in which he talked about rolling or leaning on a brace to let water out of his OC before removing the rest with a pump.
Now I've heard of this before but with my 190+ lbs in my 12 ' Outrage any rolling or gunnel dipping results in water inside the boat a few inches below the gunnels.
Can anybody tell me if this is something I sould be able to do or am I simply too big to do this in this boat.
Oh yeah I've got 60" voyager bags in this thing.

Thanks,
Tommy

My 9 1/2ft Phantom has 60" bags. When I roll it, it's no more than half full.

It seems to me that the amount of water you'll scoop up is determined midway through the roll, when the boat is on it's side. At that point you're still "weightless," so your weight relative to the boats volume is irrelevant. What matters is how high in the water your boat floats on it's side- which is why I'm shoehorned in btwn two 60' bags.

Some people put a slab of minicell foam in the cockpit, from gunnel to chine, ON THEIR ONSIDE ONLY. Since most of us only roll up on our onside (most of the time), what matters is how high the boat floats WHEN IT'S ON THAT SIDE.

When I'm swamped to the gunnels, I'll roll to get some water out, but only because the boat's only 1/2 full after I roll. If your boat is full to an inch or two below the gunnels after you roll, you'll have to displace more water from inside the boat. Or run the dry line.

If you can figure out how to do that, maybee you can teach me

I am about your size and I paddle an Esquif nitro a little bit like the outrage(size etc) when I roll I am about half full but If I am playing at a spot and I don't want to get out of my boat to dump it all the time I just find a rock on shore and tilt my boat over to dump some water out , then if I want to keep playing there is some water in the boat , or I can pump the rest out with my bildge pump.
Good luck

Years ago I remember watching some of the Coastals on big water runs. Those guys got a lot of water out fast. One thing I remember that they did which sounds futile but seemed to work surprisingly was furiously "shoveling" the water out with the paddle. They were the experts at the time on getting/staying dry. A lot of them were expert rollers, & I seem to remember some tricks for quick emptying, but since I always had a nice, comforting deck keeping me dry I didnt watch that closely.

Somewhere I'm sure I have videotape of one guy rolling successfully midway through Lava at a pretty decent level. . not bad for the boats of the mid-eighties. Must dig it out & look..

Then, of course, in deep water there is always the Capistrano Flip....

some options:
-get larger bags (I like 72 inch, so they reach higher in the boat, so water is shed easier)
-put foam in cockpit. AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
especially in the sides that is important, cause then water flowas out easier when rolling and the boat sits higher in the water when on its side while rolling.

This stuff keeps my boats pretty dry when rolling right.

Cheers, Jan

"Shoveling" water works great. A really good paddler by the name of Brad Nichols (some of you may know Brad) showed me how to do it years ago on the Ocoee. I used to do it alot when I paddled 13 footers. You need plenty of room behind the front bag to work your paddle, however. The tendancy to fill the smaller canoes with floatation prevents this. I'm presently outfitting one of my Ocoees with a 48" bag in front. Think I'll try shoveling again.

T.P.

I learned to sweep water out of my boat from Nolan Whitesell. After swamping or rolling it is the quickest way to get water out of the boat, but it does require enough room between your saddle and the front air bag to allow your paddle to sweep across the bottom of the boat. A few quick sweeps while leaning the boat slightly enables you to get enough water out of the boat to make it more manueverable so you can then eddy out to dump or bail the boat. As you said it works better in a long boat than the shorter boats more common today. Jeez that makes me feel old to talk about a technique used way, way back in the mid 80's! But it still works today if you're boat is set-up for sweeping.

I knew Brad Nichols very well. I helped him repair his ME several times. We put more ABS plates on one hull than I have ever done to any single canoe. We were going to start a canoe repair business together. We were going to call it Crash and Burn Boat Repair. Brad went to work for Perception in SC and our business plan got shelved. He's a heck of a nice guy and a good open boater to boot!

A method often used by Spanish Fly paddlers is to tip the boat up on a rock (while still in the boat) and drain out as much water as possible. I have watched several people do that on the Ocoee. Seems to work well with any of the plastic rodeo canoes.