Solo canoes are rare here
In the local paddling groups, most people paddle solo canoes. However the general public still has very little experience with solo canoes and thinks that all canoes are tandems! When they want freedom to go on a solo trip, they think a kayak is their only option. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve been on a river or local lake in a solo canoe and had people on shore remark about it. I hear comments like “Wow, that canoe looks like it’s just for one person - never seen that before”.
I do my part - I let people paddle my solo canoe on a regular basis. I keep a double bladed paddle around for them to try too. I started solo work with a double blade, and while I now prefer a single blade there is no doubt that it takes more practice to be competent with it. Double bladed paddles are an easy entrance to paddling, and beginners especially feel more comfortable with them. Some very experienced paddlers I know still paddle solo canoes with double blades and see no reason to change.
We still see lots of canoes in the upper midwest US, but I think we’d see more if there was more exposure to solo boats and double blades. But when someone can buy an entry rec kayak for $300 and a solo canoe starts at $600, economics leads to more kayaks…
Pam
Pam
Another reason for kayaks
So many people just want to get out on the water - easy to throw a little 9 or 10ft rec kayak in a truck or van. sometimes its the ease of loading/unloading and being a beginner - thus not very picky on what they paddle.
Yes. Double blading is “kayaking”.
Kayaks significantly outsell canoes these days for a number of functional and price reasons unrelated to the paddle. However, the ease of paddling with a double blade, and the difficulty of learning to control a canoe with a single blade, is one of the most important selling points in favor of decked, partially decked, and undecked butt boats.
It is the art and sport of single blading that is rapidly dying, much more so than the sales of water craft shaped like a canoe, which are also dying but in a slightly slower death spiral. If someone is propelling a Grumman, Prospector or any other canoe-shaped hull with a double bladed paddle, they ARE, in my view and terminology, engaged in the activity of kayaking not canoeing.
To me, “canoeing”, as a verb, must be limited to propelling a water craft with the skills and art specific to the single blade.
No other distinction between canoeing and kayaking makes sense to me. You can’t determine what “is” a canoe or kayak by looking at the shape. And even the words “canoe” and “kayak” mean different things in different parts of the world. Sea kayaks were long called canoes in Europe, and vice versa.
Have you actually paddled a Disco 119?
I have paddled the Disco 119. Putting a 300 lb novice in one of those is a good way to get them to hate canoeing.
Depends on the Paddle
Let’s keep it simple, for it really doesn’t matter what you paddle, since if you use a single blade paddle, it is a canoe, and if you use a double bladed paddle, it is a kayak. The difference is type of paddle used: double blades or single blade?
Want a kayak
I’ve had my canoe for 3 years and it is awesome! But I want a kayak because my canoe is super heavy. It takes my mom and I both to carry it, and then if the launch is far we have to stop to rest.
We usually go into the canal behind her house. This is fun but after three years we want to explore other areas. It’s hard to transport the canoe. It won’t fit in, or on top, of my Subaru Outback. We tried.
Lastly, I sometimes want to go paddle alone, or I just don’t have anyone else to go with. I tried paddling the canoe alone and it wasn’t fun.
Those are my reasons. I do like that we can load tons of gear into the canoe!
And for where I go a kayak is too heavy
My solo canoes(aside from two river runners) all run below 40 lbs.
Six are in the thirties and one in the twenties.
I think soon enough in some areas there will be a return to the pack canoe…those sub thirty lb wonders. It is possible to have a canoe that comes in arount ten lbs.
And both single blade and double blade in the same craft is possible if the boat is not overly wide.
This illustrates the point of the …
…original poster. No offense, but this is one of the things the original poster and some others have mentioned. Many people just assume all canoes are heavy, all canoes are big, all canoes are for two people. There are lots of very light canoes, and lots of small canoes for a single paddler. In fact, it seems that these days, most avid canoeists are more likely to paddle solo than with a partner, and choose boat styles accordingly.
The fact is, when comparing canoes and kayaks that are designed for similar use (no apples-and-oranges comparisons here), and if the build quality is similar, the canoe will normally be lighter. If you found a canoe that would serve the purpose of the kayak you’d like to have, it would be lighter than the kayak too, as long as it wasn’t made from one of the cheapest materials available. However, as has already been mentioned, paddling a solo canoe with a single-blade paddle is not all that intuitive. Kayamedic is probably right that if there’s a resurgance of canoe popularity, it might be pack canoes that become the favorite, due to the fact that mostly they are paddled with double-blade paddles (so it’s easy to hop in and go, and at least be able to go from Point A to Point B without much practice).
not assuming
My canoe IS heavy! 
That’s a fact.
Not doubting that
but its interesting that people looking to get into paddle sport assume all canoes are heavy and slow.
That metacognition thing… At one time they may have paddled a camp canoe…which usually IS heavy and slow.
I tootled around the area near Sault Ste Marie. My Placid boatworks RapidFire got lots of looks. If it happened to be on the ground…no one could just walk by without staring and picking it up. Pack canoes are still a regional NE thing but spreading in popularity. I have no crystal ball but wonder where that canoe continum will be in ten years.
Double blading has been around a while and now the new trend among pack canoe users is to get very short bent shaft paddles and sit near the bottom and switch.
Foxworx makes such a paddle.
And SUP has hit Maine…now I wonder just how that will pan out in two months when winter arrives.
? for Seeker
If you don’t mind me asking, what is your canoe? How much does it weigh?
After 20 years of paddling sea kayaks
my next boat will likely be a double paddle canoe, probably a Placid Boat Works Rapidfire. Lighter and faster than anything I’ve yet owned and as one gets older [old!] lightweight, highly efficient hulls become very attractive.
Oh I can help you spend your money
http://www.solotripping.com/community/showthread.php?t=3955
RF was the boat.
Tonight an example
It was warm, I had limited time and energy and was giving someone and their boat a lift to messing around at a local pond… wanted to really reduce the load of my getting on the water. Kayak kit alone is a pain compared to the canoe, at least for an evening on a very small pond, tho’ the WW boat that I am probably too heavy for now reduces that too.
I probably should have thrown the WW boat in the back of the car to start seriously sorting out where my left side roll went. But I just couldn’t resist pulling out the 20-something pound canoe and dropping it easily on the car. Heck, my canoeing needs lots of work too. And after I messed around with the stackers I could just fit one canoe and one kayak on the 25 inch bars.
Kayak vs Canoe
I am 101% “canoe guy”, but I can see why Kayaks are so popular. First there is cost. If you sesarch the Buyers Guide for a solo canoe under $500 you get 3 choices (one beieng a polyehelene Coleman); for kayaks there are 56. Up the price to $1500 and you have 125 kayak choices and 17 canoe choices. Second is ease of use - it took my 6 year old all of 15 minutes to figure out how to go forward and turn my kayak paddled pack boat. Paddling a canoe (especially a solo canoe) well is not something you learn in a day or two. Third is the fun factor - double bladed boats are fun! A cheap low end canoe is a dog to paddle. Most people out on the water do not go camping so the capacity of a canoe is not needed and a small kayak is easy to move around out of the water. Eventually I beleive that in the $1500 to $2000 range pack boats will give kayaks a run for the money for people who do not paddle in the ocean. Because I camp, a kayak was never an option (although I thought about it)but I was getting frustrated with the old Grummans I used to rent. Then I discovered an 18’ Wennonah Jensen and never looked at a kayak again. I would say that most people in expensive kayaks have never been in a quality canoe. I always chuckle when I see a $2000 ocean kayak with a rudder and spray skirt in an Adirondack pond or small lake. Canoes will never become obsolete but kayaks will contine to outsell them. Just my .02.
My Canoe
Funnily enough, I was just thinking how I have no idea what it is. Before I started researching kayaks, I never noticed brands or was even aware there were different types of boats!
I got it cheap at a yard sale, and it’s red. I will look tonight after work to take note of the brand and model. I don’t even know if I’m supposed to have it registered.
Packing a canoe?
How do you guys keep your gear dry in a canoe? I usually take a cooler, beach bag and backpack and it always gets wet. I’m looking forward to the dry storage or a kayak.
Dry bags
Get yourself a dry bag. They come in all sizes including backpack sized: http://www.nrsweb.com/shop/product_list.asp?deptid=1989
A dry box is useful for small items that must be kept dry that you want to keep close at hand, like a wallet, cell phone, camera, or GPS.
Things inside a cooler are going to get wet anyway. Just make sure the lid is secured. You can do that with a simple nylon strap and buckle.
And "dry" is a relative term. Don't count on that "dry" kayak storage to be absolutely water tight.
what kind of canoe do you have
that’s so heavy and slow and ships so much water? And what sort of kayak are you looking to buy to replace it?
5 gallon paint bucket
use it as a seat or table on the beach.