Wanted to see if anyone has seen this canoe by Emotion/Lifetime being offered at Dick’s and Field and Stream Store?? It’s only 13’ long, 39" wide. It retails under $400. I’ve seen nothing about it anywhere… but have read good things about Emotion. Looking for a small canoe to take out my 9 year old boy. Any thoughts?
Thanks!
It won’t be great - It might be passable
There won’t be any canoe enthusiasts on this site who think much of that boat, but it might be good enough for you. If you and your child passenger are relatively light, and you are only going out for short distances, it might do the trick.
Bear in mind that since you will outweigh your passenger by a lot, it would be really helpful if there was a way to alter the seating positions to put you closer to center. Putting a lot of weight at the stern of any canoe causes it to be a lot less stable, as you are balanced on that skinny, pointy end.
How much weight you’ll be putting in the boat is key. I can’t tell you what to expect regarding its performance with any given load, but since the load will most likely be off-balance (one large person and one small person), it will be best to keep the load on the light side. I’m guessing that the maximum load for this boat won’t be much (if any) in excess of 350 pounds, and chances are you’ll have to be well under that amount for it to handle reasonably well.
This boat is quite wide, and with a canoe that makes it difficult to paddle with a good, efficient stroke (especially for the stern paddler). Both paddlers will tend to “reach wide” and make the path of the paddle follow the gunwales, and both of those stroke characteristics induce a turning action rather than encouraging the boat to go straight. A longer “pocket tandem” canoe would handle a lot better if you need to go any distance.
So, be aware that if you need efficient performance, this boat won’t deliver much. If you don’t need that, plenty of people go out on quiet waters in very ungainly boats to go fishing, and this wouldn’t be the worst of them.
I can’t know exactly what you need, but I’ll mention that there are lots of cheap plastic boats available these days, and a small, squarish plastic rowboat might be your next step up if you want something a little more capable of handling an unbalanced load. Just to illustrate this idea, I grew up fishing with my dad in a 12-foot aluminum Jon boat, and car-topping it was no problem. That boat has been everywhere.
Emotion Canoe
I was simply curious if anyone on here had perhaps seen the craft. I do appreciate your response. I am aware of its’ specs. It’s 13’ × 39". The capacity is 600 lbs, so that does not worry me. It does weigh 96LBS which seems quite heavy. It has a built-in skew which it claims improves tracking. I would only be using this on very slow moving creeks and small lakes. Again, I appreciate the information you provided.