If its the Reverie (I)
http://www.prescottpaddler.com/Newsletters/nl0604.pdf
the Nichols were asking $700 in 2004. I think that might be high these days.
Meaurements
It is 12’ long by 20 +/- wide and about 1’ deep
Only 20" maximum width?
Or is that the gunwale (rail) width?
20" maximum width for a canoe would be extremely unlikely.
20 inch rail width is also extrememly
unlikely…that is the width at the rail of my five year old grandsons Loon Works Toy.
at any rate its an older design and it did not appreciate in value.
If you want to sell it you have to be realistic…If you want to keep it as a reminder of your granddad thats fine too.
Reveries and Adante
Reverie I was 11’10" OAL by 23.5" max molded beam. Optimal cap just over 100. At 160# I could not lift the I’s rails when heeled to the rail; putting the 210lb efficiency rating to bed.
Reverie II was 12’6" by 25" and fit just fine. Adante was the same dimensions but with more rocker. Neither could support their 250lb rating
All three were $2500 in Elite , Kevlar, laminate and $1500 in Classic, FG with roving interior; fall 1999 pricing.
Is this the same one?
– Last Updated: Aug-18-09 6:02 PM EST –
http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2846700990100443194HUoMwu
Sparrowood sold me hers, but I then sold it to rblturtle for his granddaughter, a likely (small) candidate for this boat.
Sparrowood told me it's for A 125 lb or under candidate.
It's a nice little boat for someone small.
Fishform canoe hull
Ridiculous.
I remember Moore saying “the replacement of water is more important than the displacement of water for paddling efficiency”. Do you imagine he actually believed that, or was it just a marketing gimmick to bamboozle trendy yuppies?
Looks as though the gunwales and thwarts are made of the same stuff as the fence.
Red oak
When Pat was in Stoughton WI he used red oak for rails on the Classic hulls.
You’ve got a great mind CW
How you remember all these details is impressive. I can’t remember things I did myself only 5 years ago, let alone what others did 20 years ago and where they were when they did it.
Quercus rubra
One cubic foot would weigh 41.25 lbs.
Very good for fences to keep out Kodiak bears.
I must add
the Pat Moore Reverie I that I bought from Sparrowood seemed to be in amazingly good shape for a boat built in 1988, including the gunwales.
My Reverie I
I bought my Reverie I in 1988 or thereabouts at Conclave, direct from Pat Moore. I loved it, and had a lot of fun with it back then, but that was back when I weighed only 110 lbs. (I even paddled it down the Clarion River thru X, Y and Z Rapids one day.) Over the years my weight redistributed and I found myself barely balancing in the Reverie I. Top weight capacity for it is 125# and I went above that. I tried selling it for several years at various prices, and no takers. This was a highly specialized boat…good for playing dead fish polo and for taking videos of other people trying to paddle it and dumping. I finally reduced the price to $100, and this is the only canoe I ever owned that I took quite a loss with. The one redemption was that I met Ness, so that gain made up for the financial loss. Don’t expect to get much for this boat, no matter how good the condition is. It’s pretty, but pretty doesn’t make for a good paddling trip!
Not really
– Last Updated: Aug-24-09 9:25 PM EST –
I used to be able to remember things clearly whether they happened or not. Now I too suffer from "the fade"; it's just that the rails choice seemed so perverse...
Pat's weight rating were from his own printed lit and, as others have suggested, were wildly optimistic. On the other hand, Pat was paddling Brian Dorfmans' Olympic C-1 sprint boat at Conclave 89 standing upright. Phil Sigglkow asked him if it wouldn't be more stable with his feet crosswise. Pat sculled, moved his feet and paddled forty yards down and back. Sculled, moved his feet in align with the keel again, and replied " No, it wasn't better."
The point is that pat's physical skills are so far beyond average that his opinion doesn't register for most of us.
Both Pat and Phil were dedicated to Cod-head hull forms, despite, as John Winter's said, the complete lack of corroborating test date. That said, one thing a Fish-form boat does is drop it's long, skinny stern deep in the water, countering the yaw induced when paddlers improperly carry their paddle blade behind their bodies. They were easier to paddle straight if the paddler could keep them upright. So it goes
It was a good deal all around
I met Lee Ann and opened up a new chapter on my paddling and outdoors experiences. I snatched up the canoe because I wanted a friend to get the Pat Moore Reverie from me for his daughter, but it didn’t work out. I also thought perhaps my son’s tiny girlfriend (a non-paddler) might be enticed to use it. Then reality hit, and I knew it would sit in my garage, unused, which is just…wrong. Thus my friend Turtle, who loves canoes, bought it from me for his granddaughter. He introduced her to solo canoeing with her very own boat. She was thrilled! She paddles it on his pond like a pack canoe, sitting on the floor with a double blade, (although I included a nice Mad River child’s canoe paddle with it). She loves it.
Good kharma all around. Thank you, Lee Ann.
measurements
Only 20" maximum width?
Posted by: Yanoer on Aug-15-09 2:17 PM (EST)
Or is that the gunwale (rail) width?
“20” maximum width for a canoe would be extremely unlikely."
I don’t think it was measured correctly. I had my mother meausure it for me since its at her house for storage. As soon as I get a chance to go over to Illinois to visit I will take some pictures and better measurements. Thanks all for the responses.
year
My grandfather doesn’t remember for sure of the year but was in the late 70’s or early 80’s. Hope this helps. It has a straddle pedestal seat its adjustable forward and backward trim.
Thanks again for all the comments.
Mike
Glenn, I think he was serious about
water replacement. And for efficiency, rather than the highest speed a hull could be pushed to over a distance, I think he may have been right.
Pat didn’t do anything he didn’t believe in. And nobody who’s serious about good canoes is going to waste time and material making hulls that they don’t believe will work.
CE, you may have noticed that fishform
hulls are very competitive in open canoe slalom racing. That does not mean they are fast in a straight line, but they accelerate quite smartly, and as you say, by sitting back a bit while racing between gates, the racer can get some help from the stern in tracking. The fish head bow is more easily manhandled to line up for the next gate, and the full bow also rides over waves and holes better.
I don’t know whether Kaz of Millbrook thought up the use of fishform for whitewater, but he makes most of the designs. Esquif sells the Spark, an ABS sandwich version of the Millbrook Ignitor, and the Spark has been pretty well received by whitewater paddlers.
I tried paddling my swedeform Mad River Synergy in reverse, and in fishform orientation, I could feel both the looser bow and the increased stern tracking. But as an amateur owner of a slalom decked c-1, I prefer a bow that tracks and a broad, flat middle and stern that can “fly” when ferrying.
Reverie
A good friend and paddling buddy of mine from Michigan has around a dozen solo canoes, and of the lot his kevlar Reverie II is by far the most fun to paddle. I fell in love with it, and bought my own before moving to Texas two years ago.
My girlfriend, who had never been in a canoe before (though she had some experience in fatty plastic kayaks, e.g. Pungo’s, etc), wanted to paddle before we moved, so we took my new Reverie and a Bell Merlin – a nice, stable boat for a beginner – out to the lake, and I gave her some basic instruction from the Reverie while she paddled the Merlin. She was visibly bored within 15 minutes, which was rather disappointing since I would need a new paddling partner in Texas. We put her in the Reverie, figuring if she took a dump, well, it was in the high 90’s that day, and the lake was like bathwater. She took off like a bat out of hell, grinning like a kid at Christmas.
Needless to say, I bought a second Reverie shortly after moving to Texas, and the two boats have been treating us fine ever since. They are both Heron blue, same as in the photo’s Ness posted above – the blue is subtle and not much to look at at first glace, but it is absolutely beautiful on the water. The gunwales, when I bought the boats, also looked like those in Ness’ photos, but after sanding off the first layer and applying several coats of Watco, they are a bright blond that shines in the sunlight (actually, the second boat I stained with dark walnut Watco, so we could tell who’s boat was whom’s).
Long story short, I payed around $1000 for each of my boats (fiberglass), but I also got a never-used Moore Cue paddle with the first boat, and a wooden Quimby version of the Cue with the second, each about $300 dollar paddles. Pricey for boats built in the 1980’s, but there are few on the market so I had to pay what the market was asking, and I do not regret the expense. Hell, if you drop the price to $500 and deliver it to me in Montana, I’ll buy your Reverie – I’m thinking of starting a collection of them 
Pat Moore
I am in the last stages of restoring a Pat Moore 17’ canoe. Bought this from a gent in Indianapolis that used to work for Pat and stated that the one I have one of his original prototypes for the Peter Pond. The canoe was damaged twice with hull in essence cracked in half. After years of him hawing I did sand the gell coat, repaired the hull in a decent effort, just finished a new color (hated to change the color from the original green but color match was difficult and very costly) and am driving it to Roger at Hoosier boatworks in Bloomington to have it completely re-trimmed in mahogany. Granted its no longer original but I did tape and keep the original PM front stickers with the original color behind them as well as the serial numbers visible. May not be worth too much to a collector but its one cool custom canoe for me. 