In a situation where you don't totally load the holds of your kayak, does the loose load cause problems shifting in rough water or if you do a roll? It strikes me that it would make sense to secure items in the hold of my Tempest 170 so that the storage items act as ballast and don't rotate to the deck side during a roll or edging turn. I am thinking fixtures glued to the inside of the hull and then use bungie cords to tie down the load. Alternately, I thought about putting an inflatable beach ball in the hatches and inflating those so the load doesn't shift. Do folks do this? Thoughts? ...or do you even worry about that?
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does the loose load cause problems shifting in rough water or if you do a roll
- Thread starter blackdude
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mick_allen
Paddler & Moderator
- Joined
- May 15, 2005
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It'd matter. A fairly good example is the free surface effect of a half water filled compartment. Or say try paddling a 1/3 filled canoe - very annoying. That's partially why the tie downs in canoes [also to retain loads] and why the use of airbags in partially filled kayak packing. The airbags [or loosely filled drybags] keep the load relatively in place - espec water bags.
Or the best example of a load not restrained: think of not keeping yourself in place when trying to roll! It happens. I'm not the greatest unfortunately and I can well remember falling halfway out of my ckpt while frantically using the world's most extended sweep roll to barely muscle me out of trouble with my hips truly resting on the rear coaming.
Or the best example of a load not restrained: think of not keeping yourself in place when trying to roll! It happens. I'm not the greatest unfortunately and I can well remember falling halfway out of my ckpt while frantically using the world's most extended sweep roll to barely muscle me out of trouble with my hips truly resting on the rear coaming.
alexsidles
Paddler
I’ve never found the shifting of a load to be a problem, and I’m a heavy guy who packs heavily. You can definitely feel it when 10 pounds of tripod and 30 pounds of drinking water shift from one side of a compartment to the other, but it doesn’t destabilize the boat, even in rough water or during a roll. Mick’s examples of the half-swamped kayak and the loose-fitting paddler involve the shifting of loads weighing hundreds of pounds. Unless you’re transporting cement blocks in your kayak, or unless you’re a fanatic about optimizing every possible performance metric, your ordinary gear list isn’t going to be a big enough deal that it would need to be secured. If your boat is packed so tightly that you’re getting into loads of hundreds of pounds, the gear is going to be so jammed in to the compartments that it won’t shift anyway!
Alex
Alex
mick_allen
Paddler & Moderator
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Another example: roll practice with leaky sprayskirts or hatches: when to stop and empty? . . . the interim period of time and effort to empty vs load movement annoyance dictates the decision.
Man in qajaq
Paddler
cougarmeat
Paddler
You can put a Velcro patch on the bottom inside of the kayak and a wrap the matching part around the Nalgene bottle. Your preference on which part has the “soft” side of the Velcro. Unfortunately though, it’s not quite that simple. The size of the Velcro has to be such that it holds the bottle and also releases it.
When I use that method to stabilize a foam seat, I found it’s easy to use too much and when trying to lift the seat off to reposition it, the velcro “stick together” is so strong it pulls the bottom piece off the kayak. So it has to be enough to do it’s job but small enough so that the grip is it too strong. You may need some “stick better” techniques on the bottom piece - like roughing up the area with sand paper and/or using additional adhesive.
Or, you could always use a different bottle type, like a Platypus 1 qt. bag instead of a round, rolling, bottle.
When I use that method to stabilize a foam seat, I found it’s easy to use too much and when trying to lift the seat off to reposition it, the velcro “stick together” is so strong it pulls the bottom piece off the kayak. So it has to be enough to do it’s job but small enough so that the grip is it too strong. You may need some “stick better” techniques on the bottom piece - like roughing up the area with sand paper and/or using additional adhesive.
Or, you could always use a different bottle type, like a Platypus 1 qt. bag instead of a round, rolling, bottle.