Tippy Canoe? Not If This Man Can Help It

CLARKSTON (WWJ) - A Clarkston man has come up with a device that he says will make sure a canoe never tips over.

Carl Knaus has invented the "canoe outrigger stabilizer," a piece made of fiberglass and wood that attaches to each side of the boat and dips deep into the water.

"It's very thin but then as you get toward the top it gets wider and wider which gives you the stability factor," Knaus told WWJ's Sandra McNeill. "It is eight feet long by twenty inches deep and it's only fourteen inches wide and it very light."

The result, he said, is that people will think differently about canoes.

"We've been out on the lake boats going by with waves, bouncing around and no tip over," he added. "You try and tip it over, I invite any of you. I want you to try and tip over the canoe outrigger stabilizer."

"You can't do it."

Knaus says he'll begin building the stabilizer at a plant in Clarkston next week and it will cost around $250 to install.