That old Looksha was a noble beast. Prevalent on the Maine coast for a long time until the British invasion.
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First boat of my own was a skin on frame canoe . it has negative rocker, but did a straight line real good. Turns? …not so much.
I think I am working on number 15 or 16. More of you count the inflatables.
I briefly owned a 15 foot Alumacraft tandem back around 1979-1980 which I realized was more weight than I wanted to carry even back then.
First “good” canoe was a Mad River Kevlar Explorer tandem purchased around 1981-1982 which I still own.
First whitewater canoe was a beat up Blue Hole Sunburst II which a friend and I purchased used for $75 each. It had been owned and paddled extensively by Carrie Ashton who had been a member of the US women’s K-1 Olympic slalom team in 1972 and the first female to ever paddle the Niagra Gorge. At the time we bought the canoe she was working for the University of the South in Suwanee, Tennessee as director of Outward Bound programs. At the time I lived and worked just down the mountain from Suwanee in Winchester, TN.
The Sunburst II was one of the most beat-up canoes I have ever seen. Carrie said it had made a few too many runs down the Tiny Piney in east Tennessee. The stems had completely worn through and been patched with fiberglass so many times that there were translucent windows at both ends of the boat. The center bottom had also worn completely through and some type of a large ABS had been somehow welded in place on the bottom of the boat. The gunwales had so many bends and kinks they resembled a slalom course.
bud16415:
I often recommend people buy a used Old Town Discovery. It’s almost indestructible and if it’s already scratched up, what’s a few more scratches? You have more fun if you aren’t worried about scratching up your boat.
The problem for me is weight. Putting a 75 lbs. canoe on top of my truck used to be easy. Now 50 lbs. is too hard.
I was about 10 and bought a small plastic model Viking ship. That was about 1960. Certainly wasn’t a boat I could get in being only 12" long. Built the Missouri Battleship around that time too. I bought both with my own money. 
Dad had a small cabin cruiser we fished in the Ocean with while we lived on the east coast of FL.
We had a small sailboat, john boat and fiberglass ski/fishing boat when we lived on a small lake near Tampa. A friend had a canoe.
Carol and I bought a fiberglass Mohawk Blazer 16 in Longwood, FL directly from their shop for $180 in 1974. This is the first real boat I bought. Still have it and paddle it at a 3 acre pond where it stays on some land we own.
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Brings a smile, sort of… About that time I was given a small wooden Viking ship model as a birthday gift by an aunt. I kept it for decades, but in the end it was just something I carried around. When Walt (wgiven - a Pnet paddler and one of the original Ozark rendezvous paddlers) passed away and we were remembering him, we recalled that he had once mentioned around a campfire that he wanted a Viking funeral, cremated adrift in his boat. That, of course, didn’t happen.
So at the last rendezvous we had where we camped, as we had with Walt, at the Round Spring group camp, the last place all of us had seen him, we gathered around the campfire and burned that Viking ship model in remembrance of him. Here’s to the hope that the smoke of that fire carried the spirit of our friend to Valhalla.
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Doug, was the cabin curser for when a good fish got away?
Only when a big sailfish threw the Hook, and he didn’t want me to hear the vocabulary! Spell check hasn’t figured out when the wrong spelling actually spells a real word. They need to improve spell check! 
That sounds like a canoeswithduckheads saga in the making.
I could afford it, in part because I am fairly frugal about other things. Since I sold it after 7 years for $1800 it only ended up costing me about $200 per year in the end, well worth it from all the pleasure it afforded me. Was an impulse buy and one I never regretted at all. In retrospect it did cost $100 more than the first new car I bought in 1978
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The Discovery and the Guide are both fine canoes IMO and you are right they take a licking and keep on ticking as they used to say. Mine runs around 80 lbs and I’m almost 66 years old and 80 is like 200 used to be.
I built a lift device that makes it easy and it comes with me on the rack.
It can be seen here along with all the mods I made to it. The lifter starts around post 19.
First was a 14’ sailboat in the mid sixties followed by bunches of sailboats, handful of powerboats and gobs of kayaks.
Sealution II
I liked it a lot. Sold it for a Chesapeake stitch–glue that had more volume in the bow as the Sealution tended to bury it’s nose when paddling in following seas.
Can you explain? Haven’t paddled one.
Easy to handle in both short period wind waves and longer period ocean waves. Self & assisted rescues are simple with perimeter deck lines (was not standard on early North American sea kayaks), slightly reduced size cockpit means less to dewater, & slanted bulkhead behind the seat directs water out of the cockpit during a rescue. Designed to hold an edge while paddling for great secondary stability.
Different models available based on a preference for more or less rocker. Even the reduced rocker models, i.e. NDK Explorer, have enough rocker to allow easy surfing.
Probably not an ideal first kayak for untrained paddlers as initial stability may be uncomfortable for the first few paddles…
Built for serious rough water conditions which are common around the UK. As the old Timex ads used to say, “takes a licking, but keeps on ticking.”
Maneuvers like a dream on flat waters with almost no effort assuming you have basic paddling skills.
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home made plank pond boat that leaked. Called it “Suicide”
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A fiberglass River Jammer. We called it the Fat Sally and left green paint on rocks in every river in New Hampshire.
Sevylor Tahiti Classic. I still have it, in a four-foot duffel bag which also holds the pump and an old PFD; probably an unused patch kit, too. It hasn’t seen daylight in over 15 years, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t take air and perform as good as new (PVC never dies). Floats like a leaf, spoils you with comfort, tracks like a–well, let’s not get into that.
I try to give it away from time to time; no takers yet, hint, hint.
Look up the history of Valley kayaks. Specifically the founder.
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A Sawyer Cruiser in 1980. It had been wrapped and both sides were missing. I paid $25 for it and repaired it after building sailboats for a living earlier.
i paddled that canoe for years and sold it for $400.
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