It doesn’t sound like your experience
with composite tripping canoes is any wider than mine.
I don’t argue with people who prefer wood-canvas. There are reasons. But whatever design goals you specify, they can be very closely approximated in composite canoes.
I hope I get a chance to try a wood/canvas boat for a while before I die. That might be about halfway across the next long portage.
Yes you can build any WC hull shape
– Last Updated: Apr-23-14 7:57 PM EST –
in composite. But in my opinion you cannot duplicate the feel and performance characteristics of a WC canoe just by building the exact same hull shape in composite. I have owned kevlar canoes that are taken directly from the lines of well respected WC hulls. My opinion is that it is not the same - not even close.
But like you I think people should paddle the kind of canoe they like and it is perfectly reasonable for someone to paddle composite. In fact it is the clear leader in the market certainly compared to wood canvas. I am just sharing my thoughts and the reasons why I have chosen wood for my later years. I would say that one clear area where composite wins out is maintenance. Wood canvas canoes do require more maintenance and for many people that is a huge factor in their decision and it makes complete sense. I hope you do have a chance to spend time in a wood canvas canoe. I predict you may not decide to convert, but you will see first hand the beauty and the aesthetic advantage that wood has and maybe, who knows, you might even conclude, as I have, that light weight is not necessarily the most important quality in a tripping canoe. Indeed, you might even conclude, as I have, that ultra light canoes do not perform as well as heavier canoes in the river tripping environment.
Another factor is your skill level as a paddler. There is no question that the length of time I have been paddling makes me feel much more comfortable about paddling wood canvas than I did years ago. I am confident that I can paddle and make decisions that will avoid serious damage to a wood canvas canoe. The wc canoe is far more rugged than people realize but you cannot treat it like royalex. You do need to take care. But if you are careful, and you are a decent paddler, you can paddle most anything in a wood canvas canoe. The biggest problem is boney rivers and there you just have to slow down and line your way down some areas.
Back to the tump line issue - there was mention that it has been well established the long term use of a tumpline causes damage to the spine. This reminds me a bit of Donald Rumsfeld who I recall once saying that it has been "pretty well established" that Iraq has amassed a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Does anyone know of any studies (other than anecdotal report based opinions) that support the idea that use of a tumpline causes more harm that use of a yoke or back pack?
Interesting
What are your dacron covered canoes filled with? Do you paddle them regularly? Are they re-covered vintage canoes or new canoes?
Agree with your points.
I would not use an ultralite composite for wilderness involving real risk of bashing a canoe. People give away survival strength to get that extra 8 pounds off.
I don’t think tumping would necessarily harm the spine in the long run, if the user is reasonably careful, reacts appropriately if strain does occur, and remembers that some of us are more susceptible than others when age causes the vertebrae to weaken. That’s how I’ve been able to continue “heading” canoes.
I don’t know of a really successful translation of a particular wood-canvas classic to a composite version. The odds of partial success would be better if the composite layup were thick and stiff enough to get close to wood-canvas stiffness. But there goes most of the weight advantage, out the window.
Same has applied to attempts to make Royalex versions of composite canoes. I don’t know of a super successful translation.
I’d like to hear more about attempts to make strippers durable enough for wilderness travel. Somewhat less routine maintenance than wood-canvas, I would think, and perhaps field repairs could be managed.
There’s similar discussions in the world of composite and wood musical instruments. There’s some real good carbon cellos, but real good is not Stradivarius. My newer kit harpsichord is modeled very closely on the historical original, while an older one had a plywood soundboard and heavy plywood case. The historical clone sounds much better, and the plywood box pulled itself apart from string tension.
With the low incidence of people
using tumplines would any funding for such a study even be possible… Come on now… be realistic.
I don’t care what you do. Getting an injured kid out of the woods in Temagami should have been enough for me. He was tumping and collapsed at our campsite.
But no… I went ahead and did it again in Woodland Caribou and fell and wrenched my neck badly.
My three wood dacron canoes are in good shape but used often over the last twenty years. They each see some three dozen days on the water. I live on a lake. One advantage of dacron is it does not contribute to paint checkering.
The downside is that the hull must be absolutely perfectly fair below. Imperfections are telegraphed.
Hence our fourth wooden boat … a 100 year old Robertson is going to get canvas.