Thinking of Buying A canadian Canoe?

[rancid badger]

If so, well done but there are a few things to take into consideration before grabbing a "bargain" off ebay or anywhere else for that matter!

I see and hear people talking about which boat to buy, or what it should be made of and from which manufacturer. It can all be a bit confusing and time after time, I see people who were thrilled with their original choice but after 6mths to a year, are looking for something else or are selling up altogether

I've worked out since 2008, that where canoeing is concerned, you need to be prepared to start right at the beginning

So where is the beginning?

You need to consider the sort of paddling you want to do.

Will you only paddle canals, quiet rivers and small lakes etc? Will you paddle bigger lakes or lochs and be likely to be caught out in wind and lumpy water from time to time? Do you want to do some coastal paddling? Canoe camping? Touring? Tandem or solo? With the family or only with other paddlers. Do you have ideas of paddling faster moving rivers with white water etc? Or do you in fact want a boat that can manage all of the above?!

Once you make a realistic assessment of your likely paddling activity,you then need to look at the various designs of boats and the shape and proportions of their hulls.

The following videos, while a bit tedious, actually explain quite well, the reasons for looking at hull design at a very early stage in your paddling journey.
[video=youtube;kguT2PV0Shw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kguT2PV0Shw[/video]

cant put two videos in the same post so see the next post!

 

[rancid badger]

Second bit:
[video=youtube;ZVkRfqxmeC0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVkRfqxmeC0[/video]

Once you've digested the bones of the above videos, you will hopefully be better able to decide which boat will suit your requirements.

Hope this helps anyone thinking about getting into open boating or indeed any paddle sport for that matter, the hull design of any paddle craft will determine its suitability for whatever use the paddler intends.

I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, and you're free to "take it or leave it" as you choose, but I just wish someone had pointed out the importance of the above, when I first started out, instead of just either telling me that I should buy the same boat they had or that the boat I had chosen would be ideal (without any idea of what sort of paddling I actually had in mind!) It might have saved me a lot of time and frustration, trying to do things in boats that were totally unsuited to the tasks I was trying to complete!

As I say, hope this helps.



Steve

 

[bopdude]

Thanks for the write up, I'll check out the videos when I'm on the pc next, I'm just starting to look at paddle power for this year.

Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk

 

[bopdude]

Interesting video's, not as easy a choice as I thought, something else to ponder on before taking the plunge, no rush on that score though, thanks again for sharing it.

 

[ammo]

Really liked that thankyou. Good info, that i certainly found helpful. Thanks for posting.

 

[rancid badger]

It's not too bad to be honest, at least with the information being put in front of you and explained, rather than just reading from a book for example( I read all of this stuff, before starting in 2008 and didn't really get the significance!) once you work out the sort of paddling you want to do, you can then look at boats that are suited to the task.

After that, its about deciding how heavy a boat you can manage, which leads on to hull material choice and of course price! The lighter the boat of any given length, usually the higher the price will be.

As the guy in the video mentions; it's all about compromises.


cheers

Steve