Neck or hip that is a good question DD, another one of those personal preference arenas. So can ya make a thwart &/or a yoke with the k-bar.

Good choice on the Becker Necker dd
I have a few different neck knifes, that model is next on my list.
What I like is the skeletal frame. You could lash to limb make serviceable spear if the situation warranted.

I wear them around my neck as it's easier to access than stuck in pocket/clipped to belt with PFD or pack on.

My nylon camp shirts have deep bellow pockets, so sometimes I'll rest the blade and sheath in a pocket, if If I'm cooking or doing something that a flopping neck knife would prove annoying.

Here's another model that is worth looking at  Made in China, not Taiwan like your Becker Necker. Hard to find reasonably priced working knifes that are not made overseas

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

mastertangler wrote on Nov 18^th, 2010 at 11:13pm:

My motto is:  If the boat is moving (or likely to be), I'm in my PFD.

Since I took a couple of not-so-serious spills this season (moving water between lakes), I sometimes travel solo, paddle just after ice-out, and I'm planning on making a few more trips to Woodlands Caribou PP (or maybe Wabakimi), my thoughts are kind of similar to a line from the movie Contact.  When Jodie Foster asked why she was being issued a "suicide pill," the response was along the lines of "There are a thousand things that we can think of that might go wrong, but its mostly for the things that we CAN;T think of."

I can invision, traveling solo, and pulling up on shore to take care of a nature call and not properly securing my canoe.  A gust of wind grabs it and its gone.  No canoe and no gear!  If this scenario (or something similar) plays out in the wrong place at the wrong time, I could be there a while with only what I have on me.  So even a well thought-out ditch-bag secured to my canoe is not going to be of much use.

Just a few more cents worth of opinion.

dd

DentonDoc wrote on Nov 18^th, 2010 at 11:40pm:


Here is an incident that illustrates dd's concern. Even when you think you have your bases covered things can happen.

I was getting ready for a 3 day offshore fishing trip and as per my usual custom I went about the day before laying in a pile of live bait. These baits are panfish sized and on this particular trip I thought if I could get a bit further from shore I could get some larger specimens. My boat at that time was a 14ft coleman canoe....plastic with a metal tubular frame.

After doing the catching I pulled into the shore to unload the heavy buckets. The wind was blowing into the shoreline so I figured my boat wasn't going anywhere during the brief scramble up the bank to the truck. WRONG! I looked back to see my boat some distance from shore and the calculations went through my head. Being only an average swimmer I let out quite a bellow as I hit the water determined to retrieve my boat and gear. When I did catch it I was glad it wasn't any further than it was. Looking back I suspect it was the tide that had carried the boat away after the weight of the buckets were removed (which had pinned it to the sandy bottom).

I'm with DB on the painters. At the end of a portage my boat always (well, mostly ) gets tied off.

DB,
OK, I'll bite............what's an FA kit?

"OK, I'll bite............what's an FA kit?"

that'd be First AId Kit

like a ditch kit, its value is proportional to how long you'd need to survive with it - a couple of days in Quetico in summer is a different scenario with different requirements than two weeks in a remote location.

I have several versions of a first aid kit, depending on what I'm expecting from it and the number of people it may need to serve - for a weekend trip, I don't need Immodium, or 40 aspirin, so my weekend FA kit is gonna be smaller, than say the kit in my climbing pack which may be called upon for more serious duty.

my real "survival kit" is always in my pockets, as I'm never without a pocket knife and matches and compass in the woods - that's essentially all I'd need to survive, and unless there were special circumstances like an extended trip where you might not see another person for 2 weeks or more, or a desert trip with water issues, or XC ski trips where winter is an issue, I don't normally take anything else.  But in my ditch kit (small fanny pack that attaches to my PFD) I carry a bottle of bug dope, and a crushable hat/bug net combo - I can't think of anything more miserable than trying to survive a hungry horde of mosquitos while your getting yourself out of trouble.  That won't fit into an altoids tin - though I think there is or was some foil wrapped towelettes of bug dope avaiable that might fit in the tin.

I can't see a need for a ditch kit unless you are solo, though two guys in one canoe is nearly the same if you go over or whatever - more than one boat in a party and help shouldn't be all that far away.  But I don't trust to a ditch kit tied to the boat - aside form a boat getting blown away from shore, it would be really easy to lose your boat out on a windy lake - if you somehow fall out (landing a fish? or other carelessness) the wind is gonna blow that canoe away from you a whole lot faster than you can swim, and if its cold water and the near shore is the upwind shore, your gonna have to abandon the boat - so when I take my ditch kit, it stays with me.

I was googling for altoids tin dimensions, to see if my little knife and sharpener idea would fit - they would - and came across an example of a kit put together on Field and Stream -  more silliness, this kit had a mini fishing kit, including several swivels - yeah, what are you gonna use a swivel for when all you've got is 30' of handline and a baited hook ?   this kit also contained some Potable Aqua tablets (good) and a like quantity of neutalizer tablets - so in a survival situaltion, your gonna worry that your water tases like iodine ?  don't think so.

The point I was making about the saw blades/wire saw, and the same for swivels and neutralizer tablets, is that there are much more important things that you could pack instead - certainly a second source of fire (more matches, small lighet, whatever) would have more value than swivels and neutralizer tablets!   

The Field and Stream kit had one good idea for water container - rather than a condom, it was to pack one of hte turkey cooking bags - they are very compact and seem quite strong (I just depend on multiple ziplocks that keep my stuff waterproof, but I may pack one of those bags also)

Probably, if I did put an altoid tin kit together, I'd include several twist ties - you can use them for lots of things, including replacing buttons, wiring your eyegalsses together if you lose a screw, etc.  Snare wire might work for those things too, assuming it was soft enough wire so that you could bend it to break it - your not likely to have wire cutters with you.