Hello,

I am currently building the High Capacity Great Auk by Nick Schade. I would like to know if there are any alternatives to air bags and bulkheads to provide kayak floatation in the event of an emergency.

Obviously, I will be using bulkheads because the HC Great Auk is a touring kayak designed to carry lots of gear (design water line displacement is 627 lbs) so I will be incorporating several cargo hatches into it.

However, I would also like to use some other method of floatation in addition to the bulkheads just for the extra security and piece of mind incase the boat gets a hole in it or something.

I would like to know if there are any alternatives to air bags to provide this additional floatation. I want to leave as much room open for cargo as possible without compromising safety. I was wondering if there is anything such as foam that the interior of the boat can be lined with to provide extra buoyancy or any solid material that can be stuffed inside the boat that serves the same purpose as airbags but doesn’t need to be periodically refilled or checked for holes. (i.e. the type of foam that life preservers are made out of)

Any advice for providing floatation for a kayak while compromising a minimum amount of cargo space would be greatly appreciated, especially anything relating specifically to touring kayaks or this particular model. (High Capacity Great Auk)

Thanks,

Mike