I have a 1991 Mad River Explorer in excellent shape that I would like to sell or donate to a good charity that teaches kids to canoe. The cane seats, yoke and carry handles were in fine shape, but one of my COVID projects was to replace the dry-rotted gunwales. Since I couldn’t get the ash replacements, I used poplar.
It is hard for me to find comparable boats for sale in the Sacramento area. Do folks out there have an idea of its value?
Is it Royalex, fiberglass, or Kevlar?
Royalex
800.00
Maybe a little less. It is hard to ship gunwales through the mail. It will stop some people.
Hi PPine,
Replacement wood gunwales for an older Mad River Explorer are no longer available. But I was able to get (free) 1”x1” 12-foot poplar strips that were scrap at a staircase mill. I milled those at home on my table router into inner and outer gunwales and then pieced them together into 16-foot gunwales to restore this otherwise lovely, sound green royalex Explorer canoe. It was one of my COVID projects.
I sold it to a family with two young boys for $800, and I included paddles and life jackets. If they told me that they had no money, I would have given it to them - just to make sure that this canoe lives on. I hope that they create many happy family memories together with this canoe.
Alison