You have it a little backwards.Aluminum is the one material that will outlast them all .Light they usually arent.Zero maintanance.Not expensive. Now for the bad part.Noisy killing the serenity of a wild place of paddle, cold in coolweather hot in hot weather youd better protect your skin. Seats are set no changing them for position to trim canoe or paddle backwards if you wanted to solo.I think they are also flat bottomed hulls and so that has there set of problems as well(louzy secondary stability, most wetted surface so not a fast hull).Kevlar and their composites are the lightest,followed by glass, aluminum ,Royalex and then polyethylene plastics.Heres a few pointers .Number one--weight,keep it down to 55lbs or less and if strictly solo 45-50.any less and it could be too fragile less durable and blow with the wind too easily and less prim stability. Number two keep the length very conservative for the job.Solo around 14-15 max,tandem 16-17 max.Keep the beam middle width-solo 30-33"max,tandem 33-35" max.Rocker-have 1" but no more than 1.5" for solo and no more than 2" tandem .Depth- never less than 12" and less than 14".Also stick to a shallow arch hull shape . Number three-buy Bill Masons Quietwater paddling dvd and learn some of those strokes especially the various Js.ps- my favorite paddling canoes are all wood canvas,first removed from the original birchbarks,they paddle sooo beautifully,look gorgeous,can last for ever,weigh perfectly,and are a family heirloom .To me plastics are all clones and just dont fit right in the environment you paddle.But you would never know this unless you have one.Oh yeah and four-unless your doing whitewater steady get a narrow bladed wood paddle no more than 6" wide so theres less stress on your shoulder joints .Ottertails or Beavertails shape Solid cherry would be a nice start.
A good aluminum canoe tends to be heavy. If the gauge is too thin, you might as well paddle in Reynolds Wrap.
At least dont go on a true whitewater river. Wraps are kind of permanent and ripped aluminum boats litter the boreal forest.
They are just fine for getting out there and paddling. You can do BWCA type trips in them until you get old and decrepit which is sooner for some than others.
Some designs are good and some bad. We have an aluminum canoe that we like to do FreeStyle in mostly to demo that its not about the boat per se. Grummans make decent Canadian Style Solo boats but you have to rail them to get the keel out of the water.
Its pretty funny watching a lousy beat up boat dance.
Other pros: They make a good lobster cooker and sun bath tub. And they make a good compost container. The heat of decomposition will not melt them. We use one to empty the outhouse cone in. It has a skull and crossbones on it as its too leaky to paddle and because of its “off season” use.
Ergo it was pretty alarming to find two people paddling it, blissfully unaware also that it had drainage holes drilled by my husband
Somehow I have Caught I have caught soooo many fish while fishing out of an aluminum canoe…what have I done wrong??? I have an aluminum canoe right now . I had a Gruman eagle canoe that was very good and light. Aluminun is tough. Iwrapped one a long time ago it was a cheap sears 17’ and got out on shore. Pulled it off the rocks with a hoist and then after beating it back into shape with a log and a rock paddled it for two more days to finish the trip. Once home I beat on it some more so that it would look better. It never leaked!!! I sold it a year or two later. I would much rather have aluminum than fiberglass. But to each their own. Plastic boats are great and we have 5 plastic kayaks right now. But plastic scratches so very easily!!! Plastic doesn’t take prolonged sun exposure very well. I left two aluminum canoes out in my back yard for over 10 years and they showed no effects from weathering. Try putting a plastic boat out in full sun for 10 years!!!
The biggest problem I have with them How many people do you hear say they fell out of a canoe when they tried paddling? People often think canoes are unsafe and can’t be trusted, and when you ask, the only canoes they have ever been in are flat bottom aluminum canoes.
The flat bottom typical to aluminum canoes makes them feel pretty stable when sitting still and not in motion. They have high initial stability.
That flat bottom creates a suction on the water, BUT as soon as you start to tip it over to the side a bit, you break that suction and Bloop, it very quickly looses all stability and tosses you and your gear/lunch out into the water with very little warning.
A canoe with a shallow arch hull shape like most composite canoes have will feel a bit tippy by comparison just sitting around, but as you lean them over you have more boat in the water and they become MORE stable at you tilt them over.
I bought a barely used Wenonah Sundowner from a friend at work who was spooked by the lower initial stability and was selling it to buy a Grumman which he felt was more stable paddling on the pond he used it on.
Boat snobbery … I’ve run large sections of the Snake (Wy & ID) and large sections of the Green River (Utah)in Aluminum canoes and had more fun than I knew how to deal with it. Personally anything that gets you out on the water is fine. Would I paddle an aluminum canoe in surf or down the Grand Canyon … no, but they are pretty versatile and durable.
I own 7 canoes, no aluminum. There are far better boats for my uses. If I had to chain a boat to a tree at the cabin, it would be an aluminum (though I hear they are getting stolen now because the price recyclers are offering).
The fish thing is nonesense, fish aren’t scared of bassboats, or trawlers, or anything, really - it is their downfall.
Fishing and noise. I fish shallow tropical lagoons and bays where the slightest noise will send the bonefish and permit off the flats. Maybe it won’t make a difference where you fish but it sure makes a difference where I fish.
String made a good suggestion of using foam to help with the noise.
Stability It’s not a matter of “suction” of the flat bottom to the water, because as the boat tips, one side goes deeper and the other slides up smoothly at an angle. It’s not at all like pulling a piece of plywood off the water straight up. See the Wenonah catalog for a very good diagram explaining how this works for both flat-bottom and shallow-arch hulls. What actually happens is that if you tip the boat far enough, the width of the boat which is in the water reaches a point where it becomes rapidly narrower with additional tipping, and THAT’s the danger point where most folks are apt to fall over the rest of the way. Boats with lots of secondary stability have a waterline width that gradually gets wider as the boat is tipped.
The fact is though, it IS very nearly impossible to tip over most aluminum canoes on flat water, but in moving water, where there are strong eddylines or obstacles to get pinned sideways on, that lack of stability during extreme tipping is likely to get you. Of course, the same is true of canoes made from any other material in hull designs marketed for the masses.
Aluminum, Weight, Longevity, etc. The only “really lightweight” canoes made from aluminum are things like - I can’t remember the name - is it “Sportspal”? I’ll think of it later. Those boats really are light, but they are also very easily dented and torn. Regular aluminum canoes are usually about the same weight as Royalex, so the weight isn’t too bad, but they aren’t exactly lightweight either. These “regular” aluminum canoes will last forever though. Grumman canoes are the most rugged (more rivets per inch of seam than the other brands), but the few remaining brands (I don’t think there are many anymore), including Alumicraft, are fine.
Like almost everyone else, I got my start in aluminum canoes, and there’s a soft spot in my heart for them, but I wouldn’t buy one for myself these days. Again, it may be fine for you, as most of the mundane handling traits I and other posters have mentioned are not a concern to anyone who just wants to get on the water and doesn’t care too much about learning to make the best use of the boat. But with the price difference between aluminum and Royalex being so small, I’d still recommend Royalex. There’s a much larger variety of hull designs available in Royalex too.
Dunno, there used to be some real lite Grumman lightweights. Not that much heavier than all the composite “Futzlight” canoes if you equate for carrying capacity.
My main problem with aluminum is that the hull designs are usually slow and conservative.
I like aluminum canoes That is, I like aluminum canoes in front of me when paddling down rocky rivers. That aluminum thunder lets you know where the rocks are
Seriously, I am like most other posters here. I started out with aluminum canoes. The first canoe I bought was aluminum. However, once I started canoeing rivers I quickly changed over to Royalex. Weight about the same, canoe design is more versatile, and they slide over the rocks instead of grabbing them.
Let’s Go! My paddling buddy Jarvis and I each own 17’ Alum Canoes. We have talked about taking them over to the Current River and loading the hell out of them, big tents, cots, coolers, grill, other peoples crap, whatever, and taking them down solo just for old time sake.
Anybody want to come along for the photo opts and yard sales Maybe next spring.
hope the water is high I hate the screech of aluminum.
Aluminum boats make crappy sleds. At Yawgoo Ski area a lot of years ago there was a downhill canoe and kayak race. (Yes there was --dont know if it is today a ski hill in Rhode Island). The 125 foot downhill ski trail was of course covered with artificial snow.
There was no snow in the woods. The course had a dogleg. Aluminum boats have keels. Keels dig into the snow. The boat didnt turn…went off into the bare woods with logs,sticks, leaves and mostly rocks.
Maybe I still have my 17 foot aluminum Osagian. It will probably still float even after the horses have kicked it around for ten years. I’ll just hope the water is deep enough not to have to drag it over every rock on the Current.
Not noisy at all the aluminum canoe, that is. We did a lot of wildlife watching out of our Grummans - its the people who don’t have sense enough to not bang the canoe with thier paddles that make the noise. If you are just a bit careful, you can be as stealthy (noisewise) in an aluminmum canoe as in a royalex boat. 15 foot standard Grumman = 69 pounds, and that isn’t light. But our 40+ year old boats are, except for some scratches and small dents, as good as new - we’ve always been careful with them - the object of the game is to NOT wrap them around a rock, or to hit any rocks at all if possible; they’ve been down the Allagash, including Chase rapids, and a lot of NY rivers, and they’ve done 8 or 10 Boundary Water’s trips of up to 12 days. And we could sell them today for more than we paid for them, without adding in for inflation. They’ll be just as good 40 years from now.
Probably the best thing about boats like this today, is that there are so many of them out there on the used market, for about $350. I can’t think of an easier way to get into canoeing. Are they the best boat today? There are lots of better, more specialized hulls around, but some people used to do CIII and CIV in them when they were state of the art.
That’s all that’s “wrong” with them - just not state of the art.
Matt makes an excellent point: I’ve owned several Grummans over the years and the price seems to be fairly stable at around $400 or $500. If you buy an aluminum canoe and find that after 40 or 50 years of use, you’re disatisfied with its performance, you’ll probably have little difficulty selling it for the price you paid.
The entire history of misuse is written indelibly on the hull of every aluminum canoe that you buy or sell so there is no mystery about the condition of the boat.
Point taken . . . It is true that I don’t know about all fish. I have caught most of the species in these parts, though, mostly with an outboard motor trolling.
Maybe some fish are smarter. Pike are just plain fierce (I suspect some canoes would be scared of them!)
