My wife and I are looking at purchasing our first canoe. There are two canoes we are looking at. One is an OT discovery 169 and the other one is an OT Canadienne 17’ fiberglass. We will be using it mostly on lakes for recreation, fishing, some hunting, and the occasional camping trip. If it ends up being too heavy for a boundary waters trip, I am fine with renting a canoe up there. Any suggestions on which one of these canoes would fit our needs the best? Thanks!
If you’re planning on lakes and not rocky rivers, I think you’ll be better served with fiberglass. I’m not sure of the weight difference, but the fiberglass boat should paddle a bit easier as it won’t oilcan and will have sharper entry and exit lines. (I should mention that I’m not familiar with the OT Discovery so it may not be prone to oilcanning either.)
I’ve never paddled either of the specific boats you are considering but if the prices are similar I’d push you towards the fiberglass boat since it should be noticeably more efficient to paddle and hopefully lighter which would make it more pleasant to “grab and go”.
I have paddled both of these and the Canadienne wins hands down. The Disco 169 is the Polylink3 version of the Tripper. I is just a heavy monster out of the water. The early versions with caned seats was in the mid 80# range. The later editions with the foam filled rotomolded seats are close to 90#. Paddling the Disco 169 is not bad, but the Canadienne is really a nice canoe in the water. The Disco is very stable and a good fishing platform, it will just be more tiring to paddle and a beast to lift and carry., Bill
What part of the country are you in? We have a 17’ fiberglass Canadienne that we’re looking to sell. We’re in the Dallas area.
Definitely the Canadienne