Need advice for selecting a canoe plan

You don't know which boat you should build to suit your personal needs? Please post your questions here and our many contributors will surely have some good advice.
Post Reply
meecect
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:09 pm

Need advice for selecting a canoe plan

Post by meecect »

I need some advice on which canoe design would suit me the best. I'm looking for a canoe that will function well in Boundary Waters, and also on rivers like the Kickapoo River in Wisconsin, which is a very curvy river that runs quite shallow in some spots. I'm a good paddler, but not so good at the design terminology and knowing about the various features of canoes and what feature contributes to what handling style.

I need a two person canoe, and I often go with two small (7 year old) children riding between us. Mostly I do overnight trips or longer, but occasional local daytrips are possible.

In Boundary, we used the Wenonah 17 (kevlar), which was awesome.

In Kickapoo we've used the Oldtown Discovery 169 (vinyl), which was, uh, adequate. It was durable, and navigated shallow water well, and managed to navigate the twists and turns well, but was very heavy.

So I guess I'm looking for something versatile, around the 17 foot mark.

In both Boundary and Kickapoo, I was able to basically let my wife in front just paddle occasionally and I did the lion's share of work, steering and propelling (except in some windy conditions in BWCA or when we needed to make up some time) so it would be nice to have a design that I can steer and propel from the rear without too much trouble.

Also, light is good, as I'll have to portage with it.

Which designs should I be considering? (I'll probably build two)
User avatar
Patricks Dad
Posts: 1476
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:11 pm
Location: Warrenville, Illinois

Re: Need advice for selecting a canoe plan

Post by Patricks Dad »

Take a look at the Freedom 17 plans on this site.
Randy Pfeifer
(847) 341-0618
Randy.Pfeifer1@gmail.com
Post Reply