The thread that won’t die, just like a good aluminum canoe.
.15’ Gruman
My first canoe was a second hand 15’ Grumman that was a present about 1953 on my 12th birthday. My father paid about $125. (Canoe had air tanks for flotation at both ends-have not seen one like that since.)Used only on a small pond in Halifax MA until mid 60’s when my buddy Tom and me went to visit his college school mate now working for GNP in Millinocket Me.
He was from Michigan and we figured he knew how to run white water. It was summer and we put in somewhere above Millinocket in the East Branch of the Penobscot. I don’t remember who had the stern or bow but Tom’s roommate was in the middle to supposedly give us tips. The river was not very high and we were hitting a lot of rocks. The canoe was a lake boat with a fin keel and that helped in catching every rock we came near. Having three people in a canoe in those conditions was pretty stupid or ignorant on our part. As the drop got steeper Tom’s buddy offered no help and became semi frozen hanging onto the center cross brace. We soon broadsided a large boulder in midstream and capsized with the canoe top facing upstream and the bottom wrapping around the boulder. Tom and I went bouncing down stream whooping along having a goodtime until we made for the left bank and made shore. Meanwhile his buddy had made for a midstream island and remained there almost comatose. I’m not sure but I do believe he could swim.
Tom and I made it back, got his buddy to shore from rock to rock then managed to get one end of the canoe swiveled around the rock and free. We dragged it to shore where there was a roadside stop and a picnic table. The keel was bent in the center up higher than the gunnels and all 3 ribs were cracked. We put it on the table- stepped inside-and roughly forced out keel. We left his room mate there and put the canoe back in the river down to our second car.
Back home in Mass. I drilled out and removed all 3 ribs. Got some replacements from a local dealer in Newbury Ma. I didn’t know anything about riveting but read some stuff and found the AL rivets pretty easy to handle. The canoe no longer looked very pretty and it did leak some- where I did a poor job on the rivets. There after I painted it and the leaks stopped.
Some 10 years later, used the same canoe in my first downriver race (OC2 beginner) on the Saco between Bartlett and N Conway NH. My friend Dirk is a Dutchman and was in great shape. We scouted the river the day before the race and found an island bypass on the inside of a wide right turn. It was blocked by some branches which we stealthily cut through so that on race day we took the inside cut which did help in securing first place. The canoe was slow but very stable and rode high in waves. After becoming better acquainted with river running, my wife and I entered it in slalom on the upper Saco (above Bartlett) and though not winning our class we were competitive.
Also took it down the Allagash. It was slow on the lake crossings but very stable. My buddy and his wife were in an Old Town Fiber Glass model-16’. When crossing Chamberlain Lake from Telos the wind was quite strong from the NW and the waves were running pretty close to the port gunnel of the Old Town. He was concerned but was surprised when he looked back and saw my wife hanging her butt outside the starboard gunnel in the midst of a pit stop with no threat of the Grumman taking on water. If one did flip it was easy to turn over and flip upright,even for one person. The air tanks in the ends floated the canoe so that the gunnels were up to the water line when the canoe was overturned.
The canoe was great at night in the summer lying on the wide bottom with my buddy and girl friends looking for shooting stars and constellations. Yes 4 teenagers fit nicely. The warm lake water kept you comfy through the AL shell
Later traded it in for the then hot OC2 short Malecite. Sold the Grumman to my sister-in-laws neighbor (for $200) who had a camp on a Maine lake. Heard it’s still up there doing well. Always have fond memories of that canoe.
I have been teaching Boy Scouts and their wilderness guides canoeing in Aluminum canoes for many years. They learn about primary and secondary stability, and how to paddle a heavy unresponsive tub, as camp-weight BSA canoes tend to be. The guides learn how to teach canoeing skills in them and are surprised at their own skill when they get to paddle in a modern built canoe when they get the chance.
I bought my first canoe in 1973, a 17’ Grumman ultralight. It was made from thin gauge AL, with extra ribs for strength, it weighs about 60 pounds. I was in Ohio at the time (stationed there in the AF), with few very good paddling opportunities, mostly with motorboat harassment on reservoirs, or on too shallow rivers and smelly dirty debris choked creeks.
Later, when I moved to near the Adirondacks with a family, my wife and I paddled Adirondack lakes fully loaded with 2 small kids, a dog, and camping gear for a week. I took solo trips too, remembering battling strong winds on Stillwater (what a misnsomer when winds came up!) Reservoir, often being windbound and stuck out for an extra night with an understanding wife at home. I still have that canoe, protected in an outdoor shed for all these years. Haven’t paddled it in more than 20 years. But I am now in the process of buying land on a small motorless lake and expect the old Grumman, along with several other more modern canoes in my fleet, to move there and it will see some life again, just for fun.
As I recall fifty years ago Grumman was one of the few with a press for making the “hull halves”. Many canoes we’re stretched/pressed by Grumman but assembled by and labeled somebody else.