Bilge Pumps! 

Who says that bilge pumps can’t be used in a canoe! Over the last year or so these neat little gadgets the size and shape of small stirrup pumps have appeared all over the place and there are apparently a goodly number of suppliers. Your local canoe dealer will have one or two of them lurking around somewhere - the dealers seem to be a bit tentative about stocking or displaying them for some reason. The bodies of these pumps are just long enough to allow you to shoot water over the gunwale of an open canoe - and once you’ve done this once you won’t be going back to that hacked up milk or oil carton. Some are single action pumps, some double. Some come with a closed-cell foam sleeve which makes loss overboard less likely. None come with an attachment point that I’ve seen but this can easily be sorted by whipping a line around the casing and leaving a loop for a crab or something similar.

There are two potential points of failure - the piston rod needs to be solid with little flex - I’ve seen one bent and snap with overly enthusiastic pumping. The other is the valve itself - gravel and sand will compromise this with time so being able to remove and replace that bit of rubber would be good. As yet I haven’t seen any that can be stripped down easily as most are made with push once, fitted forever, parts. If anybody finds one let the Ed know and he’ll let other folk know. I almost forgot, but then you’ll already have realised this: at short range it beats the socks off a water pistol! A typical example is the ‘Handy Pump’, described as a “portable hand bilge pump” currently marketed by Knoydart and costing £17.25.

Try www.knoydart-kayaking.co.uk or call 017687 75519.