Does anyone know where I can buy at the store, a Pelican Navigator Canoe? I know I can order online but shipping is to much. If anyone knows of a store please let me know. I am in central Virginia. I can travel a distance to pick it up.
Dick’s Sporting Goods
If they have a store in your area, or Gander Mountain. Pelican Canoes are sold in all the big box discount outlets.
Not in Store
These stores carry Pelican canoes, but as far as I know they dont carry the “Navigator”. I need to find a store that carries this model. I have only found the navigator online. I wanna buy this canoe “upfront”, not sight unseen. Thanks for your reply. I was wondering if anyone had ever seen this model in a store. If anyone has please let me know. Thanks, Sierraman1954
Pelican
Now for more of the story than you may have wanted.
Pelican International is a big Canadian plastic company. If you weren’t already there, go to their website and see how much stuff they make.
They used to make toys and paddleboats, then rowboats and canoes. Several years ago they bought the boat division of Coleman. They make lots of inexpensive canoes and sell them to big boxes and small dealers alike. They used to sell only to marine and paddlesport shops. Now they work both sides and there is where the problem starts.
The big boxes like to order thousands of a few items and get big quantity discounts. They don’t stock a few of every model, only the ones that market research shows to have high inventory turns. And Pelican will make lots of different variations on a basic model so the shopper can’t work two stores against each other when they advertise that they will beat any advertised price on this item. Each has his own “model” of the same boat.
The marine dealers have pretty much given up on stocking Pelican, the big boxes beat them on price and in the low end market thats what sells. Few good paddlesport shops will stock Pelican, not enough markup with the low prices advertised at the big boxes. And people keep test paddling at the paddlesport shops and then buying at the big box or online.
The Pelican website has dealers in Virginia. If you must have this model they can order it for you. Not too many will want to stock it and none may have it stock.
The Navigator is a Ram-X hull, 13’6" x 37" wide. Tandem seating. This means its a single sheet polyethylene hull with a reinforcing framework like all the Coleman Ram-x canoes for the last 20 years. The seats have posts below the middle that sit on the keelson tube to stiffen the hull. the center thwart has a post also. This prevents you from putting a proper portage yoke in the canoe to replace the center tubing yoke.
As for the hull design itself, it appears full at the ends, but at 13’6" in length 37" is not very wide. A narrow 13’6" canoe will be efficient, but typically canoes at 14’ will be around 39" wide and 13 foot tandems will be around 41" wide for stability.
Wanting to paddle this canoe first is a great idea, the 15 Coleman had some unique handling traits with regard to stability and this boat is a shorter version of that hull.
For the listed price of $329.99 in this years buyers guide it has little competition in a durable tandem canoe. As a good canoe to own it has lots of competition.
Stay Away !
Best advise I can give you is pick a different canoe ! I picked up one because of the price, thinking it would be fun to play with on smaller creeks and rivers. The first thing I had to do was to lower the seats and move them closer to mid-ship just to be able to keep it upright with my wife and I in it. (Total 300 lb.) The Bow seat was still to close for paddler comfort unless you are a midget. (Am not a novice in a canoe, 30 or more years at it including teaching both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts canoeing basics as well as guiding scouts on river trips when I was younger.) The hull flexed so badly on the starboard side of the center tube as to make the canoe want to lean that way. Adding a large “pool noodle” bent in place either side of the center vertical brace helped that problem. Not all Polyethylene is created equal ! This one was so soft that riding over rocks on the first river trip nearly cut all the way through the keel. (A problem anyway with keeled canoes, but this was ridiculous !) So it did not make a good tandem canoe, and was to wide for a practical solo canoe….I gave it to one of my friends that lives on a sand bottom lake for his kids to play with. The only thing good about it is the price.