New to Canoeing - Advice on Aluminum?

Al canoes
Any boat is way ahead of not owning a canoe. They were the rage in after WWII. The serious drawbacks are that they can’t be formed into complex shapes, they are heavy and definitely stick to rocks.



On the otherhand you can leave one outside in a snow bank with little effect. They are durable, used ones are cheap, and it takes a good wrap to ruin one. Find a Grumman with some length, at least 16 feet so it won’t be so slow, and join the ranks of canoeists instead of wishing you were one. Later use it as a loaner and for rocky low flows. Good luck.

Al canoes
Any boat is way ahead of not owning a canoe. They were the rage in after WWII. The serious drawbacks are that they can’t be formed into complex shapes, they are heavy and definitely stick to rocks.



On the otherhand you can leave one outside in a snow bank with little effect. They are durable, used ones are cheap, and it takes a good wrap to ruin one. Find a Grumman with some length, at least 16 feet so it won’t be so slow, and join the ranks of canoeists instead of wishing you were one. Later use it as a loaner and for rocky low flows. Good luck.

A few guys
Did fairly well with an aluminum canoe a few years ago. There was a movie about it…Deliver- something or other.

Al canoes
Any boat is way ahead of not owning a canoe. They were the rage in after WWII. The serious drawbacks are that they can’t be formed into complex shapes, they are heavy and definitely stick to rocks.



On the otherhand you can leave one outside in a snow bank with little effect. They are durable, used ones are cheap, and it takes a good wrap to ruin one. Find a Grumman with some length, at least 16 feet so it won’t be so slow, and join the ranks of canoeists instead of wishing you were one. Later use it as a loaner and for rocky low flows. Good luck.

Al canoes
Any boat is way ahead of not owning a canoe. They were the rage in after WWII. The serious drawbacks are that they can’t be formed into complex shapes, they are heavy and definitely stick to rocks.



On the otherhand you can leave one outside in a snow bank with little effect. They are durable, used ones are cheap, and it takes a good wrap to ruin one. Find a Grumman with some length, at least 16 feet so it won’t be so slow, and join the ranks of canoeists instead of wishing you were one. Later use it as a loaner and for rocky low flows. Good luck.

Al canoes
Any boat is way ahead of not owning a canoe. They were the rage in after WWII. The serious drawbacks are that they can’t be formed into complex shapes, they are heavy and definitely stick to rocks.



On the otherhand you can leave one outside in a snow bank with little effect. They are durable, used ones are cheap, and it takes a good wrap to ruin one. Find a Grumman with some length, at least 16 feet so it won’t be so slow, and join the ranks of canoeists instead of wishing you were one. Later use it as a loaner and for rocky low flows. Good luck.

Al canoes
Any boat is way ahead of not owning a canoe. They were the rage in after WWII. The serious drawbacks are that they can’t be formed into complex shapes, they are heavy and definitely stick to rocks.



On the otherhand you can leave one outside in a snow bank with little effect. They are durable, used ones are cheap, and it takes a good wrap to ruin one. Find a Grumman with some length, at least 16 feet so it won’t be so slow, and join the ranks of canoeists instead of wishing you were one. Later use it as a loaner and for rocky low flows. Good luck.

Al canoes
Any boat is way ahead of not owning a canoe. They were the rage in after WWII. The serious drawbacks are that they can’t be formed into complex shapes, they are heavy and definitely stick to rocks.



On the otherhand you can leave one outside in a snow bank with little effect. They are durable, used ones are cheap, and it takes a good wrap to ruin one. Find a Grumman with some length, at least 16 feet so it won’t be so slow, and join the ranks of canoeists instead of wishing you were one. Later use it as a loaner and for rocky low flows. Good luck.

I probably wouldn’t get aluminum

– Last Updated: Oct-25-12 11:21 AM EST –

Like many others here, I started out in aluminum canoes and have a soft spot in my heart for them. And if you want a completely maintenance-free boat that is durable and can be sold for scrap metal (instead of taken to the landfill) when it reaches end of life, aluminum is unmatched.

But unless you are buying a boat that is going to sit out exposed to the elements all year, I think you would be happier looking around for a good deal on a used Royalex or composite boat. And if you aren't concerned about the weight, I would still prefer a polyethylene boat to aluminum. Even a slightly hogged or oil-canned Old Town Discovery will paddle at least as well, and probably better than a pristine aluminum hull.

For me, the disadvantages of aluminum just outweigh the virtues. Most have been chronicled here: heavy, very limited selection of hull shapes (none very efficient), hot as hades in summer, cold as a pump handle in winter, noisy as all get out, sticks like glue to rocks.

One disadvantage that hasn't been mentioned is the keel that all aluminum boats have. Nearly all aluminum canoes have a T keel with a fin that sticks down into the water. These are very undesirable in boats intended for river use. The T keel makes it even more likely that the boat will stick on rocks and ledges, makes lift overs more difficult, and resist turning the boat when you need to.

If you plan to paddle rivers, especially headwaters where you are likely to encounter deadfall, and you really want aluminum, I would look for a boat with a rounded "shoe keel" that is a little less onerous, but good luck finding one.

ok
Ya gotta start somewhere.

Cheap is good. sounds like it serves your purpose.

Drawback?

Noisy as hell

Cold as hell…metal absorbs the cold.

Heavy as hell.

The perfect hell boat!!!

Aluminum weight varies greatly.
I have a 17’ Grumman and a 17’ Alumicraft and the Alumicraft feels much lighter and I can get both boats up to my shoulders by myself.



I don’t think they’re any heavier than many royalex boats of similar dimensions and certainly not heavier than the Mad River and Old Town triple layer boats and lighter than some fiberglass canoes of similar dimensions that I’ve encountered.



A positive trait is that they’re very stiff and responsive to body movement and paddle input.



Design matters - my two tandems by different manufacturers vary in handling characteristics.



My Grumman G-129 Solo Handles very nicely, very crisp & maneuverable, but a little deep and wide at the gunwales for my best fit. At 44 lbs, it’s nearly as heavy as my royalex Bell Wildfire/Yellowstone Solo, which I don’t use much because of it’s 49 lb weight.



The main drawbacks for aluminum for me are:

  1. The keel that grabs rocks on non whitewater shoe keeled boats.
  2. Cold when it’s cold.
  3. Hot when it’s hot.
  4. Glare in bright sun if not painted in strategic locations.
  5. Much noisier than royalex or plastic and somewhat noisier than composites. Some composites I’ve had have been pretty noisy when scraping over rocks or gravel or when setting a paddle down in them.
  6. Once the keel or gunwales are bent, they can be a beast to straighten out to near original lines.



    The ability to store them outdoors without concern for related deterioration can not be ignored.



    There are still several aluminum canoes that get used in our local group river trips and the people in them have just as much fun as the people in non-aluminum boats.



    If you find a great deal on an aluminum boat, try it. If you’re not happy with it after a few outings, sell it and try a different model of canoe. This approach applies for canoes of any material.



    Have fun searching.

Ya but----
Try building a fire inside a roylex boat to keep warm? (I saw a picture of this in aGrumman once).My scouts also developed a drum band with variously “tuned” Grummans. Also an inverted flat botton Grumman makes a good camp table.

Turtle

Fire inside the boat?
Really? Aluminum has a pretty low melting point, I believe much lower than the temperature at which iron or steel barely begins to glow, and those metals WILL glow bright red-hot if put into the coals of an established fire. I HAVE heard of using aluminum canoes as campfire reflectors!



Of course, Royalex will melt if it’s a couple inches away from a 75-watt light bulb, so I see the nature of the comparison.

Advantages
1. Makes a great lobster cooker on the beach. Particularly the 129

2. Makes a great container for compost. It won’t melt when decay produces heat.

Thoughts on keels…
The T keel on my old 15 ft. aluminum Grumman never did much to keep the boat tracking straight, nor did it inhibit turning all that much. I found the 15 footer with T keel a little more responsive to turning strokes than a 17 footer with the shoe keel that a buddy had. Of course, the T keel meant that the boat drafted about an inch more water (or, on Ozark streams) scraped bottom in an inch more water) than did the shoe keel. But that wasn’t necessarily a really bad thing because that aluminum fin protected a lot of the bottom of the boat from wear due to all that scraping and dragging in shallow Ozark stream riffles.

Yeah, campfires in cold weather
My very first bowman in 1980, when I lived in northern California and had just bought my MR Royalex Explorer, used to tell me how he and his high school buds in Minnesota would go out in their aluminum canoes in cold weather and build a fire right in the canoe. Then they imbibed a lot of antifreeze.

Keels don’t bother me either
I have a full 1" lake keel on my 17’ wooden Old Town OTCA. It’s very easy to turn with a modest heel, which raises the keel out of the water.



The keel probably inhibits sideslips more than turning, but I think it’s an advantage for straight ahead lake paddling, which is what you do 99% of the time on lakes.



If you really hate a T keel on an aluminum canoe, I suppose you could just grind it off with some sort of power tool.

Fire
The canoe in the photo with a fire inside was in the water of course. Ever boil water in a paper bag? It was in an writeup in Canoe and Kayak upon a big anniversary of the Grumman canoe company along with some other neat pictures and stories. The Grumman aluminum canoe was a big factor in the popularity of canoeing today.

Turtle

T keels
I do volunteer work for a nature society that runs day trips on a local creek that is commonly pretty shallow, at least in spots.



We had a Grumman with a T keel donated to us. The boat is in pretty good condition.



We will use it on lakes and ponds, but we have given up using it on the creek. Whoever is paddling it invariably gets it hung up, not once, but multiple times. Of course, paddlers get our Royalex boats hung up at times as well, but not anywhere near as frequently.



In shallow water, it isn’t uncommon to have some portion of the hull in contact with the stream bottom at times. With a T keel canoe it is invariably the keel fin. When attempting to maneuver around an obstacle by turning or side slipping, that keel just digs in.

Okay, that would work
I suppose it would work while on the water. It would be just the reverse of boiling water in a pot, with heat on one side of the metal and water on the other. For some reason, the thought of having the fire while paddling didn’t occur to me! Somehow, I figured the idea was using the canoe on land when there wasn’t a good dry site available.