I Recently purchased a Wenonah "Spirit" . 16' 9" long by 34"wide. The Id tag say's, SP703G787.
MY question is what is the boat made of? I believe it is fiberglass but the boat is pretty light for a boat this long. I have also contacted Wenona but with the Holidays I thought You all would be faster.
I bought this boat from a customer that had not used it in 15 yrs. Not much wear on the boat but it was never undercover untill I bought it a month ago.
I plan on trying some 303 on the finish this spring to see if I can bring the finish back without painting.
I can see it was made in July of 1987.
Thanks for any input You all may have on this boat.
John
If indeed it's a "Spirit", perhaps it is a pretty old model and the precursor to the present-day "Spirit II". Maybe in those days a particular model was made of one material only, but nowadays, most boats from Wenonah are available with hulls made from three different materials, or even four. Therefore I expect that you'll need to describe the appearance of the material, including noting the possible presence of a foam core in the floor (an area of the floor that's much thicker than the rest of the hull) or foam ribs. Ideally you could find out the weight too. Plaidpaddler, and maybe some others, will probably know exactly what you have if you can provide that kind of info.
Pictures? I owned a couple Tuffweave (fiberglass) Wenonahs and they were relatively light. Typically, the Tuffweave had a tan painted inside, while the kevlar boats were clear (yellow-butterscotch color clear) on the inside.
Wenonah I had an Odyssey in tuff-weave that was too light. It broke up in a Class I rapid. I repaired the boat but lost confidence in it and eventually sold it. It also had no rocker which is a problem in an 18 1/2 foot boat.
I ordered a new Spirit back in the 1980s from the factory. The boat was so full of ripples where the hull had been contorted I sent it back and got a refund.
Wenonah Spirit this hull is sort of my specialty. The Spirit has recurved ends, Spirit II has angled stems. Fiberglass construction on Spirits, they were pre Tuffweave, can be tan painted inside or clear. If its gel coated outside it will be tan inside. They did make core stiffened glass hulls that were clear-coated. You can see right thru the hull on the sides and everywhere except where the core and ribs stiffen the hull. The least expensive versions were “extra-stiffened”. Extra glass layers with woven roving on the inside. No core or ribs. These were high-60s#. Cross-rib fiberglass and center-rib fiberglass were low 60# range. Kevlar cross-rib and center-rib were low to mid 50# range, and core-stiffened kevlar hulls were low 40#range. Cross-rib kevlar hulls are natural kevlar inside, and one kept outside for almost 30 would be pretty dark inside and easily confused with a painted interior. But kevlar hulls of that vintage had Dupont Kevlar stickers on the hulls near the stern.
The HIN plates were inscribed and over the years the lettering might have worn enough that MFP becomes SP. I can’t put a year on the change from Spirit to Spirit II.It was mid-80"s. the Spirit was out of the catalog when the Spirit II was introduced, but Spirits were made to order till the mold wore out so a 1987 might be a Spirit. The telling factor is the stems, recurve or angled. With a Spirit the recurved ends could give a measurement from end cap to end cap shorter than 17".
The Spirit is a great canoe, better than the Spirit II IMHO. They don’t appear on the used market very often. Owners just don’t replace them; they may add other hulls to their fleet, but keep their Spirits.