I have owned two canoes in my life. Back in the 70's I bought a 17 foot
Lincoln. The 17 ft Lincoln was easy to paddle and it was stable. I paddled
this canoe for many hours and never once felt that I was in danger of
turning over. I sold the Lincoln after a few years. Like many things I have
sold in my life I later regretted selling it.

In 1993 I saw this ad for a 12 foot Old Town canoe. They advertised that
this canoe only weight 37 pounds. Remembering how nice my old Lincoln canoe
was at 70 pounds, I was thinking a 37 pound canoe would be very easy to
handle. So I bought one. I was quickly disappointed when I found out how
hard this 12 ft Old Town canoe was to paddle as compared to my 17 ft Lincoln
canoe. I constantly felt like I was going to turn over in the 12 ft Old
Town. By the way, they lied about the Old Town weighting only 37 pounds. I
weighted it a few days after I bought it on a very accurate balance scale
and it was 48 pounds, 11 pounds more than the advertised weight. Since I
was not happy with this canoe I just put it up and have not used it for
years.

This past week I actually had a need for a paddle boat. We have two lakes
at the place I work. The water level on one of the lakes is controlled by a
48 inch gate valve. The gate valve is about 30 years old and is starting to
leak. We are thinking about replacing the valve with a new one. My boss
ask me if I could get some pictures of the gate valve, viewed from the lake.
I said, "I have a canoe at home and I will bring it to work." So I put the
12 ft Old Town canoe on the lake and made the pictures. After taking the
pictures I decide to play around with the canoe for awhile. It did not take
long to remember why I haven't used this canoe in years. It did not feel
stable. We have Alligators in the lake. The thought of being in the water
with the gators and with an upside down canoe that has no flotation built
into it, was not a happy thought. I realized that the more I use this canoe
the more I hate it.

The most important thing to me in a paddle boat is stability. The second
most important thing is flotation. Will it float when it is full of water
and let me get back into it? When it is full of water my 12 ft Old Town
will go under, if you just put the weight of your hand on it. I know
because it tried it. The third important thing is, how hard is it to
paddle?

My old 17 foot Lincoln would meet two of these, three requirements, stable
and easy to paddle. However, it had no flotation built into it.

Do they make any canoes that will do all three? Stable, easy to paddle and
will not sink on me if I do turn it over.

"James" wrote in message
...

Do they make any canoes that will do all three? Stable, easy to paddle
and will not sink on me if I do turn it over.


They sure do, James. Send for catalogs from We-No-Nah, Mad River, Old Town,
etc.. You'll see what's available and find lots of good information to help
you choose a new canoe.

Have fun choosing one!
Bob Scott

You can add floatation to any canoe. Sometimes people use foam plastic,
but in many cases people buy air bags for flotation. In both cases, the
flotation needs to be securely attached to the canoe. I have a "cage"
for my air bags, kind of a net to keep the air bags in place. Air bags
are lighter than foam, but less durable.

I will suggest that stable canoes tend to be around three feet wide. I
would probably avoid one wider than three feet. Longer canoes will go
faster and track better than short ones, so they will paddle easier.

What you want is probably a "recreational" canoe, around 17 feet long,
plus or minus a foot. The manufacturers know that most canoeists are
casual, and are willing to trade off some performance for stability. I
have used some narrow performance canoes, and feel less stable in them,
even though I paddle many days per year.

Richard


James wrote:
I have owned two canoes in my life. Back in the 70's I bought a 17 foot
Lincoln. The 17 ft Lincoln was easy to paddle and it was stable. I paddled
this canoe for many hours and never once felt that I was in danger of
turning over. I sold the Lincoln after a few years. Like many things I have
sold in my life I later regretted selling it.

In 1993 I saw this ad for a 12 foot Old Town canoe. They advertised that
this canoe only weight 37 pounds. Remembering how nice my old Lincoln canoe
was at 70 pounds, I was thinking a 37 pound canoe would be very easy to
handle. So I bought one. I was quickly disappointed when I found out how
hard this 12 ft Old Town canoe was to paddle as compared to my 17 ft Lincoln
canoe. I constantly felt like I was going to turn over in the 12 ft Old
Town. By the way, they lied about the Old Town weighting only 37 pounds. I
weighted it a few days after I bought it on a very accurate balance scale
and it was 48 pounds, 11 pounds more than the advertised weight. Since I
was not happy with this canoe I just put it up and have not used it for
years.

This past week I actually had a need for a paddle boat. We have two lakes
at the place I work. The water level on one of the lakes is controlled by a
48 inch gate valve. The gate valve is about 30 years old and is starting to
leak. We are thinking about replacing the valve with a new one. My boss
ask me if I could get some pictures of the gate valve, viewed from the lake.
I said, "I have a canoe at home and I will bring it to work." So I put the
12 ft Old Town canoe on the lake and made the pictures. After taking the
pictures I decide to play around with the canoe for awhile. It did not take
long to remember why I haven't used this canoe in years. It did not feel
stable. We have Alligators in the lake. The thought of being in the water
with the gators and with an upside down canoe that has no flotation built
into it, was not a happy thought. I realized that the more I use this canoe
the more I hate it.

The most important thing to me in a paddle boat is stability. The second
most important thing is flotation. Will it float when it is full of water
and let me get back into it? When it is full of water my 12 ft Old Town
will go under, if you just put the weight of your hand on it. I know
because it tried it. The third important thing is, how hard is it to
paddle?

My old 17 foot Lincoln would meet two of these, three requirements, stable
and easy to paddle. However, it had no flotation built into it.

Do they make any canoes that will do all three? Stable, easy to paddle and
will not sink on me if I do turn it over.

James wrote (in part):

The most important thing to me in a paddle boat is stability. The
second
most important thing is flotation. Will it float when it is full of
water
and let me get back into it? When it is full of water my 12 ft Old
Town
will go under, if you just put the weight of your hand on it. I know
because it tried it. The third important thing is, how hard is it to
paddle?


Do they make any canoes that will do all three? Stable, easy to
paddle and
will not sink on me if I do turn it over.

**

I'll offer a couple of suggestions, and a couple of questions.

Flotation - Most canoes depend either on float cells in the stems
(composite boats) or on a foam inner layer (Royalex boats). Additional
flotation is added by the paddler as necessary. If flotation is one of
your top criteria you can add flotation (end bags or center bag) to
nearly any canoe. That one was easy.

Although, when you say "Will it float when it is full of water
and let me get back into it?" what exactly do you mean? If you mean
self-rescue by pulling yourself back into the boat from deepwater that
may be a diccerent story. I cxan self-rescue with a lot of tandem
models (not all) and with few solos. If the waterline width is under
30" or 32" I find it increasingly difficult to pull myself back aboard.

Stability - I presume that you mean primary stability, as opposed to
secomdary stability. If you are unfamiliar with those terms get a
Wenonah catelog and do a little reading. In fact, before you decide
that what you want is a canoe with gogs and gobs of primary stability,
yeah, do a little research reading on primary and secondary stability.

Easy to paddle - That can also be tricky, and need some aditional
definition. No one canoe will be "easy to paddle" in all conditions. A
long, lean canoe with a stright keel line will be a joy on fla****er
and a beast on a fast twisty stream. A short canoe with ample rocker
will manuever beautifully on that fast twisty stretch of river and will
be a handful on fla****er.

The easiest boat to paddle is the right boat for conditions. Perhaps
the best advice I've heard yet about buying a new canoe is to be honest
about where and how you intend to use it. If you figure to spend 90% of
your paddling time on a local lake and maybe (maybe) 10% of your time
on class II it doesn't make sense to buy a river runner that will suck
on the flats just for that maybe 10%.

James:
Do some googling about 'primary stability' and 'secondary stability'.
Primary refers to a boats desire to sit flat on the water....the shape
of the hull (flat) and the width (wide) make for increased primary
stability. Lake canoes tend to have flat bottoms and high primary,
however river canoes tend to have low primary because they need to lean
in order to carve turns.

Secondary stability refers to a boats desire to resist turning over
when the primary is overcome. Kayaks have low secondary, because
kayakers like to really LEAN their boats, and can roll back up if they
flip. Canoes tend to have fairly high secondary as an artifact of their
design, and they get stable as they lean when the uphill side gets
raised out of the water. They really only go over so much, but to a
novice, that initial tippiness is often confused with being about to go
over. A lot of novices say 'the boat tipped over' when in reality, they
felt the inital Primary stability tippiness, and they just fell over
onto the rail and turned the boat over on themselves.

Long boats, like your Lincoln, are a bit wider than short boats like
your OT, which gives them a bit more primary stability. If they made
the OT wider, then it would be less 'needle shaped' and very hard to
steer. So in short boats, you either get a lightweight, narrow boat
that feels tippy, or a wider, stable boat that you cannot steer easily.
That compromise is somewhat unavoidable, and its the reason that most
canoe makers stop at around 14 or 15 feet. OT tried to shortcut that
with the Pack Canoe, but as you discovered, it doesn't go very
straight, and it was never a hot seller.

The alternative is to get a medium long boat that is wide enough to be
stable, but short enough to be lightweight. A 16- or 16.5-foot boat
would do this. You could make it even lighter with specialized
materials....Kevlar weighs about as much as cardboard, so a 16-foot
Kevlar Mad River Explorer, while costing several thousands, would be
stable, steer easily, and would not sink (if you put an airbag in it).
There are a lot of boats in this category.

That last thing about the airbag applies to all canoes, by the way.
Otherwise, they all sink.

--riverman