How does a hogged canoe handle?

[Chip]

What should one expect when paddling a canoe that is hog backed?

I recently spent 20 days paddling an Old Town Penobscot on which the stems were about 1.5" (3.8cm) lower than the belly of the boat. Old Town specs the Penobscot as having "minimal" rocker, but not negative rocker, so I think this Penobscot was "different."

I thought I liked paddling Penobscots, but I did not enjoy my time paddling this particular boat. The boat is configured as a "big-boy, solo, tripper" and was loaded for multi-day river tripping, including about 60 pounds of water. I tried to load the boat stern heavy, hoping I could get the bow to slide across the current, but I seemed to never be able to get the stern heavy enough.

The term that best described how it paddled is barge-like. With double blade, it went along in a strait line well enough, but what a graceless way to paddle, and I found it tiring. My arms/shoulders tired from the paddling stroke (with the necessarily long (280cm) double blade, and I got tired of sitting locked in one paddling position. There was water dripping all over, and in the seemingly perpetual head winds a lot of the water blew back onto me and into the boat. I could move the boat pretty well, but didn't enjoy it.

So, mostly I single bladed. I heeled the boat to the paddle side. I normally expect a boat heeled over like that to quickly react to a twist of the blade at the end of the paddle stroke. On this 'Nob, I needed more of a pry to keep it on line, and my downriver progress was delayed by this longer stroke/correction.

What I'd like to know is, what is the normal impact of a hogged hull on canoe handling characteristics?

 

[scoutergriz]

Basically what you're describing is what a hogged canoe does; it plows the water and is a bit*h to turn because the stems are "skegged" or acting like 2 competing rudders. Did the previous owner change the centre thwart? If the length of the centre thwart is wrong, it can draw the sides in or out and push the hull up or down. you may be able to fix it fairly easily- take a piece of lumber about 3 1/2-4' long, add a pair of screws at one end to hook over the inner and outer wales, then using a pair of c-clamps push or pull the opposite gunwale until the bottom flattens back out, when it seems right, clamp it and use a straightedge and tape measure to tune it back to factory specs. measure the span and cut a new thwart for that position.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Chip you found all the negatives about a hogged hull. If this is a poly Penobscot aka livery hog its hard to change what has been done though you could try bracing the center down with foam . A RX Penobscot will be more amenable to bracing. Otherwise you can do as Griz says.

 

[dougd]

Chip, You know my Hogged Backed Saint that was my primary boat for years! If you stomped hard enough you could launch your beer so you didn't have to lean over to get it ;-)! I ended up pulling it in from 36" wide to 34" and that seemed to help a little.

dougd

 

[frozentripper]

IIRC John Winters did some tests and found hogging had no effect on drag or maybe very little... I'm sort of doubting this or maybe too much time has gone by, since I have an old flat-bottomed fiberglass that is hogged and is the absolute pits to paddle at speed with two heavy guys fore and aft making the hogging worse.

PS.... yeah, barge-like is the way I'd describe it.

 

[Guest]

What should one expect when paddling a canoe that is hog backed?

I recently spent 20 days paddling an Old Town Penobscot on which the stems were about 1.5" (3.8cm) lower than the belly of the boat. Old Town specs the Penobscot as having "minimal" rocker, but not negative rocker, so I think this Penobscot was "different."

I thought I liked paddling Penobscots, but I did not enjoy my time paddling this particular boat. The boat is configured as a "big-boy, solo, tripper" and was loaded for multi-day river tripping, including about 60 pounds of water. I tried to load the boat stern heavy, hoping I could get the bow to slide across the current, but I seemed to never be able to get the stern heavy enough.


What I'd like to know is, what is the normal impact of a hogged hull on canoe handling characteristics?

Yes, what you describe is typical of a hogged canoe as Griz noted.

I’m curious about how it developed the hog. I know that particular RX Penobscot 16, set up similar to my Penobscot 16 as a big boy big load hauler. I’ve had that particular canoe on our van for thousands of miles and on my truck several times, and paddled beside it in North Carolina and Utah alongside my Penobscot. I never noticed any hog, either on the water or on the roof racks, and think it would have been apparent, especially racked beside my Penobscot flat and level.

I drew my Penobscot in about an inch when I soloized it and that incremental change along the sheerline (I had all of the seats and thwarts removed when I reconfigured it as a dedicated solo) had zero effect on the bottom. One inch narrower at center, spread along 194 inches of length, should not have any impact, especially with a shallow arch bottom and an older RX hull on which the foam core has firmed up. Maybe with a flat bottomed poly boat, not with a firmed up RX hull and shallow arch.

I recall that you measured the beam and it was at OEM factory specs, so how the hog developed is a mystery.

The real mystery is why you used the Penobscot for 20 days of paddling when a test trip had shown the undesirable paddling effect of the hog. It may be that you are simply accustomed to paddling canoes more amenable to paddling heeled, with more rocker, ie your Appalachian or Rendezvous.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

When I was in Kenya one time, I was being pursued by two guys who wanted to sell me some trinket. I kept saying, “I don’t want it.” With every few steps they dropped the price. Finally, in exasperation, I turned and said, “Look, I wouldn’t take that if you gave it to me.”

To which, one of them replied, “Wow. You really don’t want this.”

I suppose that’s how I feel about hogged canoes. Snobby on my part? Perhaps. But I really don’t want a hogged canoe.

 

[Chip]

Yes, what you describe is typical of a hogged canoe as Griz noted.

I’m curious about how it developed the hog. I know that particular RX Penobscot 16, set up similar to my Penobscot 16 as a big boy big load hauler. I’ve had that particular canoe on our van for thousands of miles and on my truck several times, and paddled beside it in North Carolina and Utah alongside my Penobscot. I never noticed any hog, either on the water or on the roof racks, and think it would have been apparent, especially racked beside my Penobscot flat and level.
...
I recall that you measured the beam and it was at OEM factory specs, so how the hog developed is a mystery.

A mystery it is, and hogged it is. I wonder if the BB solo tripping configuration contributed. The load is distributed in the ends of the boat and the middle of the boat is empty. There's the paddler, who's weight is born by the gunwales, so I don't know how that factors. Lots of floatation in the middle and a lot of weight in the ends might be the right combination.

The real mystery is why you used the Penobscot for 20 days of paddling when a test trip had shown the undesirable paddling effect of the hog. It may be that you are simply accustomed to paddling canoes more amenable to paddling heeled, with more rocker, ie your Appalachian or Rendezvous.

I guess I'm a slow learner. Nobody ever told me hogged = barge. heck, Doug paddled the Hog Backed Saint and seemed to like it just fine. On the test trip, I had a lot of load in the boat, and I think it took me a while to sort out the affects of the load vs the hull shape. But, somewhere along the line, I came to the same conclusion as PaddlingPitt. I thought about stopping and paddling on the way back east, always concluding with the thought, "I really don't want to paddle that boat."

Thank you posters who confirmed my conclusions on the handling characteristics of a hog backed boat. Sometimes, I think it is just me (and maybe it is) . For example, I disliked paddling a MR Explorer, a boat well respected and enjoyed by the majority of paddlers. Just not my cup of tea.

 

[goonstroke]

Chip, You know my Hogged Backed Saint that was my primary boat for years! If you stomped hard enough you could launch your beer so you didn't have to lean over to get it ;-)! I ended up pulling it in from 36" wide to 34" and that seemed to help a little.
dougd

Wait, wouldn't pulling the rails in make it more hogged? Longer at the shearline, same at the waterline? Or am I geometrically challenged?

Those Disco 158/169's make pretty good picnic tables. No shallow arch to shed drinks and condiments.

 

[Guest]

I have my RX Penobscot 16 in the shop doing a little post trip maintenance.

Looking at the shallow arch bottom it is still arched and unhogged, and that canoe has seen 13 years of heavy use and abuse. I laid my considerable bulk atop the overturned bottom with dang little deflection. How that Penobscot got hogged is still a mystery.

My best guess; at some point with the original or current owner, it may have been pinned open side upstream with enough force to permanently hog the bottom.

 

[Iskweo]

Depending on how stubborn you are....make a cradle that supports both ends and have a screw or hyd jack mounted in the center, with a plate for the football area. turn it over and paint the bottom black and leave it in the hottest sun you can manage for a couple of weeks and see what happens.

 

[martin2007]

A few years ago I purchased a used, dirty, badly hog-backed Poly canoe, a Clearwater Algonquin. I think it got that way, hog-backed, by being stored for a season or three, gunwhales down, out in the elements and under heavy piles of accumulated snow and ice. I thought it would make a decent loaner/beater, and it cost me very little. After cleaning the hull inside and out and varnishing up the seats and thwarts and replacing all the metal hardware, I placed it on a canoe rack open-side-up in good summer heat. I loaded it with sand bags at strategic points, i.e. where the floor had buckled upwards. Over the next 3-4 weeks I monitored its shape-shifting progress and moved the sandbags around a little to flatten out the moguls. I succeeded in bringing the hull back into a semblance of its correct shape, if that beast ever really had a correct shape to begin with. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a temporary fix. The hull had a strong nostalgic streak, considerably stronger than my own, and proved to be quite resistant to change. As soon as I turned my back, it began to revert to its old form. Cheap plastic, and assertive to boot! Quite proud of its deformity, and to heck with what everyone else thought. I sensed I wasn't going to win that battle. Long story short, the weight and the natural oil-canning tendency of that boat put me off poly canoes for life.