Awesome topic! We are going to see some sweet rides I bet!!
Boat number one is a Merrimack that I bought in 1993. Fell in love at a boat show in Rochester, NY when I saw one that was ivory colored. I was 27 I guess, not much money, but could not help myself. I was smitten. Merrimacks are cherry-ribbed, clear fiberglassed over the wood on the inside, fiberglassed on the outside. You may not agree, but I just thought it was a lovely boat. 16' or so long, 68 pounds, 35-36" beam. It carries well, it is balanced perfectly. A lot of water has passed beneath this hull, as have a few rocks and the like, but she earned every stripe. Pretty fast I always thought. The next canoe I'm going to show is noticeably faster, but my comparison point in 1993 was to the Grumman Battleship and the Grumman Aircraft Carrier, at 72 pounds and 78 pounds respectively. At the time I was all excited to get a lightweight boat with some nice lines! The photo is from July 2016, at the conclusion of my son's first canoe trip. The appeal to me of the Merrimack, just visually, is that it resembles a canvas canoe. One of the boy scout dad's who mentored me years ago had a pale green Chestnut that was a stunner, and a rocket on the water. That filled my head with a great idea that one day I should get a canvas canoe. That leads me to boat number two.
An Old Town Lightweight Canvas. After waiting I dunno, thirty years, I finally said how much longer are you going to wait to do this? Answer - 2016. So I bought her last year at this time. I am the second owner of this 1967 beauty. She's 15' long, weighs around 58 pounds. I replaced the center thwart with one that made carrying much easier (original is in my basement). The original owner bought it new and enjoyed it until she was physically no longer able, and decided to give the boat second life by selling it. The wood is marvelous. I was told it was original canvas, but it wasn't. Had to deal with a leaking issue after the first outing - whoever put the canvas on forgot compound underneath the stem bands, and once that simple problem was solved, smooth sailing, plus we got correct stem bands on her. This boat is very fast, and accompanied me on my first solo canoe trip last Fall. My wife and I certainly put the boat to good use last year, we had it out quite a bit, and it was even on Lake Ontario a few times. We've already had her out twice this year. There were two reasons I looked for and bought a lightweight Old Town. One was the weight of course, the other was because there is no thwart immediately behind the bow seat, which makes it easier to use as a solo boat (same is true of the Merrimack). I am a bit of a geezer in that respect - I use the seat - I've never been able to kneel well in a canoe. I kneel if the wind and waves require it, but that's it. This boat, while lighter, feels a little bit more like dead weight on my shoulders than the Merrimack.
I wanted to refer to the canvas boat as the Monitor so we'd have the Monitor and the Merrimack, but my wife doesn't like that, and wants to call it the "Old Town". Its' ok though, the Monitor knows her name when she hears it.
At some point, as I age gracelessly, I'm going to have to look at getting a Kevlar something or other weighs nothing boat, but that will push one of the other boats out of the garage, so I'm not in a hurry to do that just yet....I think. For now I just have to prevent the Merrimack from getting too jealous of the use the Monitor, I mean Old Town, has been getting.
dontgroandaddy wrote:
