Building outriggers for a canoe

[shorefisher]

Avid gave me a great idea (thanks!) and now I want to put outriggers on my canoe. They need to be fairly lightweight with high flotation. I would love to be able to stand and fish!

I've found them for as little as $200 online for cheap ones but I know I could build better for I'm guessing $80 but the key is the floats themselves.

For the frame I'm thinking heavy aluminum tubing or light galvanized with standard setscrew type joints. My canoe is a 17' heavy gauge aluminum and the outrigger crossbeams would simply bolt to the crossbeams of the canoe to prevent stress on the hull. They need to be easily assembled while already on the water to enable some of those tight reed launches.

I have all the tools available (drill press, etc) but am sadly lacking a TIG welder to make it truly professional.  

Does anyone have any experience with this or any ideas? Especially float ideas.

[Wayne P.]

I made some for a fisherman a few years ago, I used either 4" or 6" PVC pipe, can't remember which. I think the pipe was around 4' in length with solid caps on the ends. He made the bracket to attach them, it was pretty crude but worked great.

[illumastorm]

here's what i did, we have a 12' aluminum canoe, when my wife and i took it out it was always a fight to keep it from tipping over, not anymore! we can stand up, lay back and just relax while fishing and this has made our canoe very stable. keep in mind i threw this together in less then a hour and it's not professional looking by any means, when i get some time i am going to redo it and make it look better. i took 2 styrofoam blocks around 12" tall & 20" long, shaved the front for a v-type shape for easy sliding through the water, carved out a place for the wood to sit in, used clothes line to strap it to the foam, took a piece of c-channel 4' long and screwed that to the wood. i put 2 bolts on the center of the canoe sides and use wing bolts to hold the outriggers to the canoe, very easy to attach & remove without any tools. the foam just barley sits in the water with me and my wife in the canoe and doesn't seem to make any differance in paddleing it.

[snapshotmd]

here's what i did, we have a 12' aluminum canoe, when my wife and i took it out it was always a fight to keep it from tipping over, not anymore! we can stand up, lay back and just relax while fishing and this has made our canoe very stable. keep in mind i threw this together in less then a hour and it's not professional looking by any means, when i get some time i am going to redo it and make it look better. i took 2 styrofoam blocks around 12" tall & 20" long, shaved the front for a v-type shape for easy sliding through the water, carved out a place for the wood to sit in, used clothes line to strap it to the foam, took a piece of c-channel 4' long and screwed that to the wood. i put 2 bolts on the center of the canoe sides and use wing bolts to hold the outriggers to the canoe, very easy to attach & remove without any tools. the foam just barley sits in the water with me and my wife in the canoe and doesn't seem to make any differance in paddleing it.

How wide is the beam on your canoe? Mine is about 3' and if you're using a 4' length of c-channel, that only leaves 6" on each side. Is this right?

I'm beginning to think that one could attach a swimming noodle on each side of the canoe and that would be good enough.

[illumastorm]

thanks for catching that, i was going by my memory and as usual that was off ;D ;D

our canoe's beam is just over 3', the c-channel is 6', and that puts  each foam block is around 1' away from the canoe.