I want to purchase a used canoe for an old,overweight woman who loves this quiet part of the river–me. have been looking for a year and if I don’t buy one soon I may not be able at all to bend over to enter one. am thinking about an old town OSPREY 155–it has three seats and oarlocks and seems to be stable. will not do any rapids–just paddle around daily (or row ) does anyone have any suggestions for me.I really would appreciate any and all feedback–thanks in advance judy
Judy,
Are you going to have to haul the canoe? Carry it to the water and load it on a car/truck or will it be left at the shore or edge of a lake? Will you always solo or will you sometimes share your experience? Knowing these things will help people give you good recommendations.
thank you jerryohare
the canoe will be left at edge of river–just slide it in. Also sometimes another person will be with me–as well as my dog who loves the water as much as I do
I don’t know the Osprey
I have a WaterQuest 15.7 by Leisure Life Limited and it is very heavy but very stable. The link below is for reviews of the WaterQuest 14 and it seems as likely to suit you.
http://www.paddling.net/Reviews/showReviews.html?prod=506
Osprey Opinion
I bought an OT Osprey for my folks a few years ago. They, like you, were looking for an easy slow water boat for one or two. The boat works well for this purpose. Solo is a piece of cake with the oars and tandem works great with canoe paddles.
Don’t know where you
are located Judy, but Ozark Canoe Company has some decent prices on new Ospreys. Check jis listing: http://www.ozarkcanoe.com/BoatListPage.htm
He also sells on Ebay and will ship if southern Missouri is too far to drive to pick it up.
Rowing a canoe
I row an Old Town disco 160K. It weighs a lot more than an osprey. It is a great row boat for solo rowing. For two it is a very stable but slow canoe to paddle. I really like the old town canoes with the option to row them.
Wenonah Solo Plus
You might check out the Wenonah Solo Plus. It seems like a good boat for solo or tandem paddling.
Stick with something maintenance free
An aluminum Grumman or Sportspal would be fine for keeping at the edge of the water.
Probably no need for that in this case
– Last Updated: Feb-09-06 6:22 PM EST –
Suntan is talking about the fact that Royalex, plastic, and composite canoes gradually deteriorate when stored out in the sun, but this deterioration takes time. It doesn't sound like this canoe needs to be in top conditon 20 years from now, so I'd say get one made from whatever material you want.
yeah they last for awhile
All of my racing canoes are kept in the garage, but my two royalex canoes have sat out for over 5 years and still look in really good shape. I honestly wouldn’t want to paddle a big Gruman aluminum canoe around solo. It would pretty quickly convince me I didn’t like to paddle.