Hello!
I’m new to the forum but excited to become part of the community. I was wondering if any of you recognize the make of this canoe. I picked it up used as a project, but the previous owner didn’t know much about it. It’s about 17’ and fiberglass. There are no stamps or numbers or HIN that I can see. There also appears to have been a lot of somewhat shoddy repairs and modifications made at some point in it’s life.
If anyone has any ideas or insight, please share!
Thanks!
Chris
I hate to say this, but I hope you didn’t pay much for that boat. It looks very heavy and very poorly made. To me, one reason it appears poorly made is that there’s no penetration of the resin (whatever the resin/filler material might be) into the fiberglass cloth. You shouldn’t see a simple (and in this case, excessively thick) coating that breaks away to reveal bare cloth. The use of riveted metal reinforcing in combination with fiberglass is also most unusual.
I have no idea who might have made this boat, but it was almost surely some small maker that’s not in business anymore. Back in the 60s and 70s there were a zillion little companies making crappy fiberglass canoes. “Plaidpaddler” knows more about such things than anyone else here, and he might have a clue.
Golly that looks like a Dolphin. Weighs in at a lot.
I hope you got it for free.
this one is a museum piece. It is an aluminum hull as evidenced by the keelplate and rivets. The inside has been shot with a layer of undetermined plastic material. The chip of the exterior beneath the gunwales shows foam material shot onto a screen material possibly for additional floatation since it appears to have no air tanks and limited floatation under the seats. On the exterior photo you can see rivet heads, but inside no ribs, assuming the ribs are hidden under the interior coating… This canoe could have been an attempt by any of the aluminum canoe builders to improve on the traditional aluminum canoe. Bill
