Looks like I may have a modest 122 feet of canoe by end of this week. Some of you kayak people are out of control.
Oh no what have I done…just bought two 10ft kayaks and was already looking at a third today…I’m only at 20ft, what have I gotten myself into 
Tom, that implies we were ever in control. My father was building boats in front of me when I was born.
I tried and accomplished the marriage, kids, mortgage, 60 hrs a week thing .
Then ,my earliest memories caught up.
You have me beat although some of these lengths are +/- a bit & I’m not going to measure for accuracy.
17 9
16
15 8
15 6
12 2
17
15 6
17
17
so 143’ 7" more or less
One of the 17’ hulls is more or less retired as it needs a new skin & doesn’t fit me well and another is a work in progress that may or may not get finished.
I feel so inadequate…
Only 96’
You do have me beat since I cheated and used the 16’ 6" Wenonah Advantage I am storing to boost the total and that is not actually my boat.
If you know anyone looking for an Advantage, by the way, (kevlar ultralite and almost pristine despite 1988 vintage) for $1400 the owner has finally decided to let it go. Has not been used for 7 years and was rarely before that. Owner’s long time lady is afraid of water.
Canoes
16’
16’
15’ 8"
14’
14’
Total 75’ 8"
Kayaks
17’
17’
17’ 4"
19’ 4"
10
total 80’ 8"
Grand total of 156’ 4"
Three of which I haven’t used in years.
10’ Pelican
14 Mohawk ww canoe
17’ Folbot Super.
So I guess I should subtract 41’ which would leave me with 115’ 4"
But I have two sailboats which makes 34’ 10"
19’
15’ 10"
Corrected Grand total for boats that get used 150’ 2"
Basically 4 canoes, 3 kayaks and 2 sailboats in the corrected grand total.
I would bet the guy here that used to go by the handle “The Bob” has us all beat!
Well, I guess that I better finish the project boat so that I’m not cheating. I need to join the deck & hull, seal the hull somewhat (and cheaply — paint maybe) and finish the bulkheads.
An Advantage just isn’t my canoe except for maybe one day a year. I do know people who know people who may be interested. I’ll pass this on to them.
I’ve got lots of photos of it and it’s stored safely in my nice clean boathouse. I do travel a bit and could potentially arrange delivery, depending on location. It will fit inside my camper.
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I’ve put the info out & I’ll let you know if there is any interest.
Mild envy for your storage space. I really only have hanging space in the garage for 5 so three canoes have to sleep outside on a three high rack.
Regarding storage when the fleet expands:
Went to a lot of effort and expense for that storage barn. I live on a lot that is so steep there is absolutely no room for a driveway or garage (it would be a black diamond ski slope – any cuts into the profile would cost a fortune in engineered retaining walls).
So I bought a house 3 blocks away for $81K with one of the only level back yards in the whole neighborhood. I rent it to a family, and about break even on the income vs. expenses (that will go up once the home equity loan I took out for the garage construction is paid off next year). I spent $10K on a 32’ x 20’ reinforced concrete pad with vapor barrier and $10K on the 32’ x 20’ steel 2 car garage with shop extension. The tenant lease grants me exclusive access to that workshop end and the current tenants have temporary clearance to store their landscaping business equipment in the two garage bays.
Until I built that I had to carry my boats from my roof rack to the sidewalk, down a flight of 6 steps, around a tight 90 degree turn in the front yard, downslope to the left of the house, another tight turn under an elevated back porch and then through a 32" basement door and hang them overhead or step over them to do laundry. Fortunately most of my boats for a while were folders and I could stash them in duffel bags. But as I added hardshells it got ridiculous.
I do highly recommend those steel garages though. The crew built the thing in one day and it is solid. Has a clear span peaked ceiling and the garage doors coil overhead so I could hang a bunch of boats up in the ceiling if I needed to. But for now I could house the whole fleet there if needed. Right now the solo canoe is in the basement because I am doing some maintenance on it and the 16’ composite kayak is living inside the camper. But both will relocate to the “barn” for the winter. The yellow Pakboat folder will go back into its bag.
I already have the materials to run a subpanel out there to add power, light and baseboard heating in the shop space. With the next lease I will build a wall between the two garage spaces and limit the next tenants to one bay so that I can move the boats to the near bay and build a workshop in the side where they are now with the windows.
Place to stash the boats nearby with easy access to the vehicle, nice tax deductions on the income property and the house and land have already appreciated so much that I already have over $100,000 equity in it. Win, win, win.
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VERY jealous of that dedicated storage space! I used to have a fantastic tandem garage in my townhouse - could fit two cars and I had two freestanding Talic racks that held three kayaks each. I was not happy about losing that garage when I sold the townhouse to live aboard full time on the sailboat. Consequently I essentially have nowhere to put the kayaks - one lives at the marina on a 2x4 rack diagonally over the corner of my slip - we can’t leave kayaks, dinghies etc on the dock. One lives at my parents place in NH and the other three (!) are at the home of a couple of friends who are kayakers and built a very nice covered storage rack in their yard. I think there are 10 or 11 kayaks, skis and an OC1 back there now between my boats, their boats and another person’s single kayak! Whenever I decide to move back ashore, my #1 requirement for a house will be a garage!
Full pic of the metal garage building. Lots of vendors for these – mine was the local dealer for Carolina Carports. You can get any size, several roof pitch choices, colors, windows, doors, etc. Much better pricing and quality than the ones you can order through the Big Box building centers. I recommend highly putting them on a concrete foundation with vapor barrier embedded (otherwise the floor will “sweat” underneath anything laying on it.) I also made sure the foundation was exactly the dimensions of the building footprint so the exterior siding overhangs the edge and keeps water out. Not that the boats themselves would be harmed by storage in a wet location but I can also store tools and fabric items like PFD’s and dry bags in there without worrying about rust or mold.
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It looks like there is enough room for a couple of my boats and my cot for an extended summertime escape…
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I used a similar vendor for our horse loafing shed about 4 years ago. It’s 40 feet long and divided into stalls and has worked out well considering the price.
While we are just pikers compared to some on this thread, my wife and I also had this experience over our first 2 years of paddling.
We started with a pair of Oru Bay Kayaks (12’ each). After 9 months, we got more serious and graduated to an Eddyline Sitka ST (13’ 9") for her and a Sitka LT (14’ 6") for me. I just traded my Sitka for an Eddyline Fathom LV (15’ 5"). This gives us a total of 67’ 8". However, we cheated a bit and sold off the older boats so our current inventory is a lowly 29’ 2". For better or worse, that is all our garage can hold.
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s264 ft
But I’m selling a few of the 10 ft rec boats ( to make room for the 3 longer yaks on order)
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I always welcome visitors. Though I don’t know what sort of “summertime escape” SW Pennsylvania provides (unless you live in Death Valley) – we’ve had crushing humidity, tons of rain, orange alert air pollution and clouds of pestiferous insects this year. I fled to the Maine coast and the Adirondacks to escape for a bit and got rained on in the former and choked with smoke from the Canadian wildfires in the second.
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LOL, you make it sound delightful!