Hello, this is my first post on here. My girlfriend and I have two small girls ages 3 and 6 and we re looking to buy our first canoe. I have been boating for years, mainly white water kayaking and we have two flat water kayaks that we use for day trips and the occasional over night trip. Our girls really want to start going with us and both my girlfriend and I would like to increase the length of our trips somewhere in the range of 3-5 days in length. We canoe on the allegheny and most of the time the water is very flat. I would love a kevlar canoe but I get concerned because in some spots the river here can be quit low and I worry about damaging the boat, that probably is a non factor in reality. Another thing is that I want to make sure we have adequate room for all of us and lets face it the kids will not stay kids for long. I was considering either a Wenonah Minnesota 3, old town tripper or tripper XL. Your thoughts please.
Thanks,
Dan
Good choices
Those are good choices for large family tripping canoes and another very rare choice would be a Old Town Northern Light 186. It is 18.5ft long and lots of room. It is 36 inches wide. I am putting mine up for sale on this website in 2 days. It is virtually brand new condition and made of tough hand laid fiberglass. I can send you a photo if you respond to me via e-mail
Don’t get a Wenonah where the outer
layers are Kevlar and will get fuzzy with wear.
Instead, pick out a Wenonah Tufweave model. Only a bit heavier than Kevlar, but tough, smooth wearing, and if it needs repair, it’ll be easier to repair than Kevlar.
Kevlar should never be an “outside” layer. It has been shown repeatedly to have deficient compression strength as an outside layer. Tufweave is wonderful, but if you must have Kevlar, get a Millbrook with S glass on the outside (hard, never fuzzes) and Kevlar inside.
souris river
I was doing some more research and came across the souris river quentico 18.5 which looks like a great boat too. Anyone have experience with it? I may end up with a tripper or tripper xl and buy myself a smaller solo composite boat, kind of like a sports car for the water lol.
I have a SR
not the 18.5, its the Wilderness 18.
Its got an epoxy coat over the Kevlar. After four or five years of bottoming out the Kevlar will fuzz and require re epoxying.
My friend an outfitter can afford to have the factory redo it.
We don’t take ours on many river as we would have to redo the bottom ourselves. See the post re Kevlar above.
If you have river bottom rocks to contend with don’t look at skin coated Kevlar…