Flotation / Weight Limits

[beekeeper]

Does adding foam filled and/or water tight compartments (floatation) increase the weight limits?

beekeeper

 

[Kayak Jack]

No, but any weight, of any material - no matter how buoyant - will decrease the remaining weight which you can put in the boat before it sinks.

Any weight in a boat, whether feathers or lead, depresses the boat further into the water.

 

[gbinga]

Flotation should be sized and located so as to keep the boat floating and stable when swamped.

To tie in with what Jack said, it will not make the boat more difficult to swamp.

If you add, say, five pounds of foam to the boat, and locate it as high as possible in the hull, then you just lost five pounds of carrying capacity, but if the boat ever gets swamped, the buoyant material will help to prevent it from sinking, and depending on how well you were able to locate it, will help keep the boat stable while you bail it out.

Are we making sense?

GBinGA

 

[Kayak Jack]

There's a saying in sea kayaks, that an electric pump is the only kind worth having. If a boat swamps, the paddler is too busy staying upright and tending other duties to be pumping with a manual pump.

I'm not sure that would apply to an open boat as much, but it very well could. I'd say that if circumstances start to work against you - many passengers, kids, high winds, illness/injury, etc. - that an electric pump could be another insurance item in your favor. I guess it has to save your life only once to be a worthwhile investment.