C-Forum

Just starting into whitewater canoeing and figured i should learn to role first. I can roll my mohawk probe 12 up but there is a pretty good amount of water in my boat when i do.

Is the probe 12 just designed this way?

more likely answer
Is there something wrong with my technique?

Realize my technique isn't perfect but i have rolled it up quickly and there is still a good amount of water in my boat.

welcome to the sport ...

If you are coming up quickly there isn't anything wrong with your technique. All open boats have water in them after rolling.

Try gluing minicell foam plank to the sidewalls of the hull in the cockpit area. It will reduce the amount of water that the lower inwale catches and scoops into the boat as it rolls up out of the water.

How big are your bags? If you want to minimize the amount of water in the boat you need at least 60" long bags.

Putting some transfer tubes under the saddle will help keep the water from messing with you once you get the boat back upright as well. Definitely bag and foam the hades out of the boat to keep as much water out though.

so you glue the foam all the way up the walls of the hull to the gunwales creating a taller wall for the water to be scooped with?

my air bags are definantly not that long but there is room for bigger airbags. if i were to install bigger airbags wouldn't that just push all the water towards me inside the boat? Does having more bag cause less water to be scooped in the boat when you roll?

i guess i just thought of rolling as a way to get water out of my boat. guess thats not really an option.

you will always have some water left in the boat when rolling an open boat, but you can minimize it with well placed foam and air bags. you can lace in side wall foam by glueing in a few D rings along the lower part of the chines and drilling a few pairs of holes in the hull just below the gunnels. But first get some 2" or 3" minicell foam and cut and carve it to fit the sidewalls as snugly as possible so water does not get trapped between the foam and hull. I could talk you thru it if you really want to go that route, just pm me with your phone #

I have a pair of mohawk made air bags, which im not too happy with; or mohawk the company.but......

so how do you properly install a pair of air bags? Should they be flat or round and come above the gunwales? How can i make them keep water from going under them?

thank you for all the help that yall have been giving.

Airbags need to be flush against the gunnels and tight. The flatter they are, the more they start to become concave and retain water - not just rolling, but getting waves on the boat as well.

Putting big float bags in a boat will also have the advantage of floating it higher in the water when upside down, therefore having a shallower "scoop" while rolling. The down side is that you lose storage space. Bulkhead outfitting adds yet more material to displace water and keep the canoe floating high when upside down.

Craig Smerda's website has a good photo of a really-heavily foamed out cockpit of bulk-head style saddle: http://kayakoutfitting.com/tips/wwcanoe/index.html

Some of Mike Yee's gallery shots show how the p-cord creates a bag cage. This cage keeps the airbag in position, and then blowing it up like a balloon makes it fill the cage space as completely as possible. To get the crowning that FullGnarlz is talking about, your bag cage actually needs to be kind of droopy when there is no airbag in it. http://mikeyeeoutfitting.com/o_gallery/ ... ntom-6.htm

I hope I'm not opening a can of worms, but not knowing what your issues with the airbags are, it is EXTREMELY common for them to develop pin-hole (or larger) leaks over their lifetime, and not hold air as well as they did when they were new. Sometimes they can be repaired to 100% function, sometimes not. If you have a slow leak in an airbag that has seen more than a few days use, unfortunately, that is par for the course. One of the under-stated benefits of decked open boats is that the airbags seem to last much longer.

Basically, there are a few boats where rolling could be an effective way of reducing the amount of water inside, but the vast majority will pick up 25-100 lbs of water if you can roll-up successfully. Looking at Mohawk's website, the Probe 12 is one of the narrower boats they produce, but will ALWAYS come up with a lot more water than something very narrow like a Prelude, or with decks like a Taureau, L'Edge, or Option. This is why people running big water in big boats sometimes resort to battery-operated bilge pump systems.

Hope this helps,
Shep

thank you everyone who has posted about my question. now to go and put the help to test on a river instead just a pond.

thanks again