It’s quite dirty, but no obvious damage. Seats definitely aren’t for wide butts.
Also kind of heavy.
I’ve never paddled one, so I don’t even know if I like the model, but the price was acceptable and it was only 30 miles away.
We have two of them. Both out of kevlar
One we call our beater boat which is our oldest, and the other we keep just for racing in the Adirondack 90 miler and non rocky lakes and rivers.
I have altered both of them with sliding seats in the bow and the stern.
I believe you are a smaller paddler like I am, so if you have a fairly small partner you should love it.
My wife is an awesome bow paddler and those boats have won us too many races to count.
The Jensen 17 was billed as a tandem that could be paddled solo from the center seat, but it was just a tad too wide for me ,so the center seat is gone and replaced with a portage yoke.
Our kevlar ones came from the factory at 39 pounds, and is in the “Stock Class”, and we have beaten many 18 footers in past years
If that new storm doesn’t screw up north Florida next week we will be racing the beater one in the annual Swannee river race on Saturday.
The Jensen 17 is by far our favorite canoe
Mine doesn’t have a center seat.
1978 is when Martin & bought a Jensen 18’. We ordered it new from an appliance shop in Ann Arbor. A great canoe and very educational. Paddling on quick twisty Michigan rivers in a Jensen 18’ teaches reading water and positive strokes. Alas, my understanding is that it met its demise in a log jam somewhere in Missouri.
Heavy is the last thing I think of when someone says Jensen, but congrats on a great hull. I still miss our kevlar Wenonah Jensen 18. We sold it to a guy from Maine on paddlingnet in about 2000. Here’s to hoping she’s serving her new owner well. After almost 20 years I am appreciating kevlar much much more than I did then.
Lighter weight is better for me, as well.
Heavy boats only get used when there’s help to carry.
You picked up a fine boat Yanoer. I had one for 2 years and it treated me quite well.
Like all Jensen boats it likes to go straight and fast. The 17 will turn better than the 18, but it has no appreciable rocker. Overall they paddle very nice, have a nice low bow, relatively trim but comfortable paddling stations.
Only reason I sold mine was it was the 60lb fiberglass and I wanted a 45lb kevlar boat so traded it for a frankenboat one-off WWII.
You’ll enjoy!
It is quite heavy because from the inside it looks to be a cross-rib model with the early fiberglass seats. The outside looks like Kevlar, but I have never seen a cross-rib Kevlar Jensen with a painted inside and skin coated outside. Cross-rib hulls came with a gel-coat exterior in kevlar or glass, and a bare inside if Kevlar and painted if glass. Is the outside just a dirty colored hull? If the hull is glass it should weigh somewhere around 63#, if Kevlar around 52#. Either way the paddling is about as mentioned above, it is the fastest 17’ hull and is not a large capacity canoe and one not suited to rough water with heavy (200# + paddlers) or novices. Like jack L there is one on my rack and it has won a number of recreational class races ; unlike Jack, mine is core-stiffened Tuffweave and weighs 55# making it legal for rec class here in NY. Injoy yours. Bill