What’s the difference between a Standard Grumman and the Grumman Eagle?
The Eagle was discontinued in the 1980s.
eagle was a lighter boat- thinner aluminum, i could heel it a lot better so it probably had some hull shape differences as well- my favorite aluminum canoe , Honestly, I just liked the way it paddled- easier to move around solo than some other economy boats from that same era.
The Eagle was Grummans answer to the coleman and the 174 Old town Discovery It was meant for the mass merchandiser. The hull shape has flared sides and angled stems so the hull could be stacked like egg cartons for shipment. The gunwales were riveted in place at the factory and a half dozen hulls nested together. The trim was boxed and put inside the top hull. The whole works was strapped together and shipped. Old town did much the same with the 174 Discovery only the Polylink 3 hulls were shipped naked. All the trim was placed inside the stacked hulls. In either case “some assembly required”.
As far as paddling the two hulls, they are both my favorites . The Eagle is the nicest paddling Grumman and the driest in waves due to its immense bow flare. The continuous flare from bow to stern gives it better secondary stability than any aluminum canoe without sponsons (Sportspal). The 174 Discovery has a similar shape for stacking purposes and has much the same traits. And until the Penobscot derived 164 came along, it was by far the fastest Discovery. A heavy tank, especially with the later rotomolded seats that add a good 5# apiece over the laced wooden seats. The Eagle is lighter than both the Old Town Disco174 and the 17’Coleman RamX. By better than 20#. Some Loctite on the treads of the trim screws, a piece of closed cell foam on the seat, and the very nice Grumman bolt on Yoke, and you have a long lived, workhorse of a canoe with immense cargo capacity. Lightly loaded it can be a handful in a strong wind for a pair of young Scouts, but no more than a traditional aluminum canoe with the high recurved stems.
As mentioned the hull is thinner than a livery grade Grumman, but it is a higher strength alloy. Grumman did learn about aluminum alloys and construction making all those carrier based airplanes in WWII.
Bill
thanks for the info, good to learn more about an old favorite rental boat
I agree with plaidpaddler. I owned a Grumman Eagle 17 for several years and regret selling it. It is the best paddling of all the Grummans due to the flare mentioned and also the shallow arch bottom. The standard Grummans had flat bottoms.
I’ve never owned an Eagle but, like many others here, no doubt, grew up paddling the old Grumman 17’ standard. One thing I learned “way back when”, back when I was a foolish youth, was that if an overloaded Grumman was paddled into (or with) very large waves it would swamp not by water coming over the bow or stern but by green water coming over about two feet back, just about the place where the recurved stems blend into the sheer.
When I first set eyes on the Grumman Eagle, I noticed it’s bow and stern were lower and the sheer line higher - and figured that they had made a correction. So there’s another difference. Like I say, I’ve never owned an Eagle and so have never overloaded and swamped one, but I bet it would be harder to do than the Grumman standard.
And the standard took some real doing to actually swamp. Usually they’ll pitch a paddler out before they swamp. Another lesson of youth.
Some pretty amazing things have been done in Grummans with a block of foam or a truck innertube strapped in the middle. I recall hanging over the edge of one counting the rivits on the bottom (at least it seemed that way at the time - it was very much on & beyond edge) at the top of Lower Hemlock on the Paint one fine (not) early May afternoon. It looked like a 100 yards to the bottom of the rapid & really wasn’t in the mood to swim it.
Saw an Eagle on the Buffalo last week. First one I had seen in quite a while.
How did it (and it’s paddlers) handle the Buffalo?
@Yanoer said:
How did it (and it’s paddlers) handle the Buffalo?
I saw it too, and I can’t say for sure how it handled since it was paddled by two guys not in our group and I only passed them by. There was nothing on the Buffalo that couldn’t be handled in any general-purpose canoe, as long as the paddlers had some idea what they were doing, which of course on the Buffalo is not really the norm.
Thanks for the interesting info and opinions. I just got a 17’ Grumman Standard, but it’s a bit heavy for me to handle alone, which is how it will be used mostly, so I’m looking for a lighter canoe before I even got this one wet. Sounds like an Eagle would be better.
I’d like something that is suitable for white water up to Class 3 also, and it sounds like Eagle outperforms the Standard there too.
My favorite method for making any aluminum canoe feel lighter on the back and shoulders is to install the excellent Grumman clamp-on padded yoke. Makes any aluminum canoe feel twenty pounds lighter. Buying it is cheaper than one trip to the chiropractor.
Bill
Hey! So I live in the Raleigh-Durham NC area and we have a Grumman Eagle 17’… in good shape still. I’m trying to figure out what this may be worth. Any thoughts on a reasonable range?