old old old town

got a recent deal on an old town otter after taking out the factory foam and per. pedestal, which is for sale if anybody is interested,I put in a cane seat at a good tilt and am fairly happy with it. Its 14’ long and 30 or 31 " wide My thought of shortening the middle thwarts to about 28" is next on my mind. My question is, Is this going to change the performance for the better or just make it less stable both prim. and second.or do I need to spend more time doing yardwork and quit tweaking all these boats Ive seem to keep collecting ? also, who can tell me the history on these boats it was made in '88 and weighs 56 pounds, must be thick royalex. Thanks for a reply

I thought the Old Town Otter
was their 9 foot kayak ???



cheers,

JackL

it is now…
unless some other old town craft used to be known as the otter, the otter you’d buy today is 9’, maybe 9’6". Better than half of the crew I paddle with have these, can pick 'em up new for under $300.

older than the kayak
It must have been one of there original “whitewater” boats Flat bottom with just a little bit of rocker.

OT Otter was

– Last Updated: Aug-21-05 8:28 PM EST –

one of the earlier white water solo kayaks. Came out about the same time as Mad River Courier maybe early 80's. I still see the occassional one around.. Very low if any rocker as i remember..
If i understood you correctly, you are planning to reduce the beam of the boat by a few inches. I did that to a Mad RIver ME many years ago and it reduced the rocker but made for easier off side paddling. I did this by using a a number of bow and stern thwarts plus two tharts perhaps a foot each off of centre towards the bow and stern so that i could sit in the middle. I used that tandem boat strickly solo.
So, what affects would reducing the beam have on your OT? I would think it would decrease initial stability but that might be okay. In white water reducing the beam might make it a wetter boat.

1988 - you call that “old”???
jeez. Them’s thar infants!!



You had me all excited with your post. If you have something to go with my 1914 and 1941 Old Towns, then post again!!



:slight_smile:

Make temporary thwarts
Keep the originals original size. Get lumber and make some quick and easy thwarts the size you want to try. I just finished putting a boat back to original after a lot of tweeking and experimenting I decided the boat worked best in it’s original shape.


Are we even talking about a kayak?

– Last Updated: Aug-22-05 1:55 AM EST –

Kanaka says this was an early whitewater kayak. The original poster describes the boat as being equipped with several thwarts and a pedestal seat. That doesn't sound much like kayak construction to me, so I'm pretty sure what he has is some sort of canoe.

thanks
for the info I figured on making some trial ones out of scrap lumber and seeing what difference it would make. This boat being 14’ and little rocker , can anyone compare this to a solo 14 or vagabond besides the extra weight which is about 55 pounds. Thanks

my mistake… ot otter was a canoe…