After an intense week fiddling with available materials I think I have settled on the engineering and design for my outrigger.
It's an eclectic mix of 'stuff' and I won't be hazarding a ruling until it gets wet. The logic hopefully is apparent. It will probably be joined by another mirror image outrigger on the other side of the pirogue, but for now it's a single sided feature designed to ride primarily on the lee side of the craft.
If it doesn't work as I hope, I'll tweak it. When you are using crutch arms and cable ties, bungee cords and swim noodles, fiddling with the design comes easily.
My puppetry background, and the materials I mastered via that DIY, is useful.
I spent a lot of time researching outrigger types from East Africa, through Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and the South Pacific, and it seems (to me anyway) the parameters vary depending on preferred functional attributes and traditions.
That I have a flat bottom canoe when most indigenous craft are rotund, and often tree trunk carved, means that I'm dealing with my own idiosyncratic challenges. I won't bore you with the many variables I have discovered and the creative way different sea going cultures have solved their structural and functional problems.
But let's just say this:I'm hopeful.
I'm not after speed, just stability in varying conditions enough so that my Pirogue and I don't capsize quickly, especially when I've got a head of sail...
