How To Choose A Canoe

The first step is to determine what kinds of paddling you'll do. Most people can't afford a specialty canoe for each of their activities, so the goal is to find one that strikes a good balance among all of your needs. I don't want to discourage you from considering owning more than one canoe, because it helps eliminate some of the compromises, but all of us here at Rutabaga understand that it isn't an option for everyone.

If you read that last sentence carefully you noticed an important word—compromise. Designing boats is a study in the art of compromise. To enhance one quality, you will have to give up some of another and you should keep that in mind as you read this. It may help you to think of canoes as divided into types based on what they are designed for. Keep in mind that these are not universal categories, and that not every canoe fits neatly into one category. There will be some overlap, which is good, because your interests probably span more than one category. As you read this, don't feel that you have to choose only one that describes you. In fact, it may be more useful to rank them in order of how important they are to you. Don't worry if you see unfamiliar terms here, they'll be explained a bit later in the article.

More people shop for recreational canoes than any other. These hulls offer stability and predictability. They are versatile, since they are not designed around a particular specialty. Some will have capacity for shorter trips, others will be better suited for day paddling. Most will be flat or nearly flat on the bottom and they typically have generous width, which helps give them comfortable stability.

Looking for a design that gives you the best combination of performance and versatility? If you are, then touring canoes are for you. Compared to recreational boats, they are more high-performance. This means a bit more speed and efficiency, and the capability to handle rougher water. You have to give up a bit of initial stability, but you gain it back in secondary stability. They are like Swiss Army knives; they do a lot of things well, but a specialized tool can do it better. Some of us here at the shop like to say that touring canoes may not be the best choice for a specific use, but they're never the wrong choice. If you need performance and you use your canoe in many ways, this is as good as it gets.

If you take day and weekend trips, and you want to cover the miles in less time, cruising canoes are where it's at. They are suitable for paddlers with some experience since they usually have lower initial stability, but they cover more distance per stroke than any other type. They don't have the depth of the other designs, so they won't take a heavy load or handle rough conditions as well, but if you are someone who likes to maximize efficiency for each stroke, cruising canoes are the answer.

Think of a Suburban that floats. That's what tripping canoes are all about. Their purpose is to carry people and gear (and lots of it) over long distances in safety and comfort. These boats also work well for those families with a couple of kids and a big dog who like to go for day and short camping trips. They are usually wide, but their extra length means that they are still very efficient. Most of these designs are meant to be paddled loaded, and they will feel very different if you paddle them empty. Also, these are the largest canoes out there, so give some consideration to the lighter weight construction methods. They are "a lot of boat" (too much for many people), but short of taking two boats, there's just no other way to make so much gear float.

Whitewater boats are highly specialized hulls whose purpose in life is to turn rapids into a playground. They are deep for dryness, not capacity, and they have considerable rocker for unbelievable maneuverability. The downside is that they are very slow and have very poor tracking; only an experienced paddler can make them go straight in calm water. They are the best at what they do, but they are the least versatile of all the types. And yes, if you capsize, they can be rolled back up if properly outfitted.

Sport canoes are boats with features optimized for hunting, fishing, and photography. This means that they are stable enough for shooting and casting. They also need enough capacity for decoys, a dog, or camping gear. They are typically shorter so that they can maneuver into tight spots. They will not be as efficient as some of the other types, but if you compare them to row boats and duck skiffs, they have much wider use.

If you've been able to narrow the search a bit, it may be appropriate to give some attention to weight and outfitting. Weight is in large part determined by material, and that is a subject unto itself. Outfitting can also affect weight, as well as price. When you choose a canoe, you will have to make choices such as what type of trim and seats, portage yokes and foot braces you want. There are pros and cons to all the choices, so ask around if you have questions.

A few thoughts on weight—not everyone needs an ultralight boat, but do consider what the weight of a canoe means. If you drive a full-sized van and you weigh 115 pounds, getting that 80-pound boat on the car is going to give you trouble. Also, if you are "mature" enough to qualify for an AARP membership, a lighter boat may mean an extra decade of paddling independence before you have to get help getting the canoe to the water. I merely mention these possibilities since most people think that weight is only important to people who carry their boats on long portages.

Aside from weight, let's consider the different aspects that go into design of canoes. Length is an important determinant of canoe performance, having a large part to play in both efficiency and in tracking. A difference of as little as six inches can have a remarkable impact on the feel of the boat. In terms of efficiency, longer hulls (all other aspects held constant) will be faster, and shorter hulls will be more maneuverable. For a given width, a longer hull will be more streamlined. This means that it can be paddled at higher speed with less effort.

But now it gets tricky. What counts as "high-speed" is different for each hull. In general, for longer, narrower hulls this speed will be faster than for shorter, wider designs. At lower speeds, however, you may find paradoxically that the long, fast boat feels slower. That's because you're rubbing more boat on the water, and that friction is only counterbalanced when paddling at higher speeds. In short, fast does not mean efficient—fast is a Corvette with a V8, efficient is a Volkswagon Bug (like my first car, a '57 beetle, all 40 hp).

Not that you're likely to, but don't forget about width, or as we sometimes call it, beam. When you look at canoe dimensions, keep in mind that the gunwale (rhymes with tunnel) width and the maximum width are often not very relevant to this aspect of performance. You need to look at the waterline width. As you look at canoes, it is easy to forget that the shape of the waterline is not what you see when you look down on the gunwales. Most manufacturers of performance canoes will list the waterline width, and now you know how to use it. Speaking of the waterline width, it's also the dimension that has the greatest effect on the stability characteristics of the canoe, with wide waterlines generally featuring more stability.

However, that is an extreme simplification, and the shape of the hull in cross-section has a lot to do with stability. The cross-sectional shape of a canoe hull plays an important role in how the canoe performs. The shapes on the extreme ends of the spectrum are round and flat, and most hulls are somewhere in between. The most common shapes are shallow arch and shallow V.

Some of the concepts that will come into play in this area are speed and stability. Many people do not care about speed, but most people do care about efficiency. The two concepts are related. In most cases, a hull that is more efficient will travel farther than another for a given amount of exertion. Put another way, a more efficient hull will require less effort per stroke to keep up with its less efficient counterpart. But remember that potential hull speed is not actual hull speed. Buy a boat that matches your speed.

Stability is an important concept for a potential boat-owner to understand. There are actually three types, usually called initial (or primary) stability, secondary (or final) stability, and finally, dynamic stability.

Initial stability is the feeling of steadiness that a hull has when it is sitting flat in the water. It is what most people mean when they talk about stability. If you want to be able to stand up to shoot or cast in your boat, you want high initial stability. Secondary stability has to do with how the boat handles when it is leaned. It is a function of how much energy it takes to keep a leaned boat from going all the way over. High secondary stability means a boat can be held on edge with little effort, and low secondary stability means that it takes lots of energy (powerful bracing strokes) to hold it up without letting it tip all the way over.

If you will use your boat in rough conditions, you can have too much initial stability. This is because hulls with high initial stability want to ride flat on the water. When you encounter wavy conditions, you may find that the surface of the water pitches up and down at steep angles, angles which your boat will try to mimic. This means the boat will be rocking from side to side on the faces of the waves. Lower initial stability will help alleviate this problem, and high secondary stability will ensure that you remain comfortable with your boat held at an angle to the surface of the water. It is possible to create hulls which get high marks in both types of stability, but they have to be quite wide. T his creates problems of a different type, since a wider boat will tend to plow rather than slip through the water. You can make the boat longer to counteract this, but then you end up limiting maneuverability. The long and short of it is that most boats are a compromise between initial and secondary stabilities, and you will have to do some thinking about what is important to you.

The last, dynamic stability, is difficult to measure. It basically refers to the fact that boats moving through the water have more stability than boats at rest. Anyone who has ever paddled an Olympic kayak or round-bottomed rowing shell knows that the boat is very twitchy and uncomfortable at rest, but seems to "settle down" when the boat starts moving through the water. All boats have some dynamic stability, but it is not that essential in most non-racing hulls. So forget I said anything about it. FYI only...

Round-bottom hulls are extremely fast, but have very low initial stability. They gain their speed from having a very small amount of wetted surface (the amount of area in contact with the water) for the volume that they displace. Because there is no inherent stability in a round-bottomed hull, they are used primarily for racing, where when combined with a narrow and long boat, will result in the fastest top speed.

Flat-bottom hulls have the highest initial stability, like a floating dock or pier. The drawback is that they have a high wetted-surface area, and are therefore less efficient at both lower and higher speeds. Choose a flat-bottomed boat if initial stability is very important to you, and you don't mind giving up a bit of speed and rough-water capability for it.

Shallow arch hulls are a compromise between the speed and efficiency of round bottoms and the initial stability of flat ones. There is a lot of variation within this family, with some hulls rounder (less initially stable and faster) and some flatter (more initially stable and slower), so you can pick a point along the spectrum where you are comfortable.

Shallow V hulls are also a compromise between round and flat. In terms of initial and secondary stability they have very similar characteristics to shallow arches. However, the shallow V has a bit higher wetted-surface ratio, so it is, theoretically, not quite as efficient. Advantages of the shallow V include enhanced tracking and performance in carved turns, and a great degree of comfort and stability when leaning the boat. The shallow V also helps to stiffen the boat. This is not generally required in composite boats, but it can be helpful in some Royalex hulls.

External keels deserve to be mentioned in a discussion of cross-sectional shape. They are typically absent in performance designs because they increase the amount of wetted surface and therefore decrease efficiency. However, in recreational canoes where initial stability is very important, sometimes a keel will be included in order to keep the boat from blowing sideways in a crosswind or to keep it paddling straight in the hands of less-experienced paddlers. External keels can also help to stiffen a boat that is made of one of the more flexible materials.

Also relevant to hull cross-section is the shape of the sides of the boat. They can feature flare, tumblehome, or straight sides. Flare means that the canoe continues to get wider above the waterline, reaching its maximum width at the gunwales. Flare plays a big part in keeping waves from breaking into your boat, and it has a positive effect on secondary stability. However, flare can make it difficult to reach the water with your paddle, since you will have to reach out over the gunwale. If you are reading a catalog and notice that the gunwale width and the maximum width of a boat are the same, the boat has flare.

Tumblehome means that the widest point on the canoe is not the gunwales. In cross-section, the sides of these hulls appear to pinch in a bit at the top. This means that the paddler doesn't have to reach as far out to get the paddle shaft vertical in the water. This is especially useful in solo canoes, but tripping canoes can benefit from it as well. They can have extra beam for cargo capacity, but the tumblehome makes it easier for the paddlers to reach the water. If a canoe's measurements indicate that the gunwale width is less than the maximum width, the canoe has some tumblehome. Most designs will feature a combination of flare and tumblehome. Flare in the ends makes for a dry ride, while tumblehome in the midsection allows for easier paddling.

Straight sides offer something of a compromise between the two extremes. Since flare and tumblehome each have distinct advantages, most designs will go one way or the other. Straight sides, on the other hand, are typically found on all-purpose recreational and sporting canoes. If the waterline width, the maximum width, and the gunwale width of a canoe are all the same, the canoe has straight sides.

Rocker is the amount of curvature along the length of the keel-line of a boat. The runner of a rocking chair is the perfect demonstration of extreme rocker. The function of rocker is to increase maneuverability. When this happens, the ability to track with minimal effort is decreased proportionate to the amount of rocker — the more the rocker, the harder it is to make the canoe go straight. Once again, you will have to find the balance that suits your needs. Whitewater boats feature lots of rocker so that they can spin on a dime. Cruising boats typically have little of no rocker so that they can cover long distances efficiently, without the need for corrective strokes.

Depth is also important, especially in determining capacity. There are actually three measurements of depth—bow, center, and stern. The one most commonly referred to is the depth at center. This measurement gives you an idea of the relative capacity of the hull. Deeper boats will generally carry more weight. Depth also adds seaworthiness, since it helps keep the water where it belongs (that is, out of your boat). The down side is that depth increases windage and may interfere with comfortable paddling. Once again, figure out where along the scale you are and look at boats that meet your criteria. Carrying heavy loads on rivers and lakes with ferocious chop calls for depth, while cruising and day tripping on small, wind-swept lakes does not. Likewise, bow and stern depth add seaworthiness (but not much capacity). Bow depths tend to be greater than stern depths because oncoming waves are more likely to spill into the canoe than are following seas.

Now let's consider materials. There are four basic materials for canoe construction: aluminum, plastics, composites, and wood. Each material has advantages and disadvantages, although some have more of one than the other. Some materials are more suited to certain types of designs, however, since not all materials allow the designer the same amount of freedom. The key is to find the type of boat that suits your needs and then to look at what options you have in materials. Your choice will have an effect on many aspects of your canoe's performance, including weight, impact and scratch resistance, top speed, efficiency, and price.

Aluminum is used only in very inexpensive canoes. Its main advantage is its low cost. Drawbacks include considerable weight and the fact that the ends may not be formed into very streamlined shapes. Aluminum also tends to drag and hang up on rocks rather than slipping over them. Finally, aluminum hulls are almost all symmetrical since the mold is very expensive. This means that makers of aluminum canoes can't take advantage of varying shapes to maximize performance.

True, aluminum needs little maintenance. In a boat vs. rock situation, the rock most always wins, and once dented, aluminum may not pop back into shape without considerable assistance, and may never be the same as it was pre-rock. The sun reflecting off aluminum can also give you more solar exposure if you don't paint the bottom of the boat, and if you drop a lure or pocketknife in the bottom of your boat, don't plan on seeing any fish for a while — remember that sound is conducted much better by water than by air.

Plastics come in several varieties. The least expensive is polyethylene, the same plastic found in milk jugs and lots of other everyday objects. This material also has limitations. It is quieter and more slippery than aluminum, but it is not very stiff. This means that it will not hold complex shapes, nor can it be formed into fine entry lines. It is a tough material, but basic single-layer polyethylene is seldom used in boats that will see rough treatment, that is, wilderness trips and whitewater rivers.

To address the flexibility problems of polyethylene plastic, Old Town developed Crosslink3, which is a three-layer sandwich of polyethylene with a layer of polyethylene foam in the middle. This is the toughest hull material out there, and while it is incredibly tough, Crosslink3 is heavier that most other materials. For boats where overall weight is not an overriding consideration, where durability is important, and where price is an issue, Crosslink3 merits serious consideration. For this reason it is the choice of liveries and outfitters all over the country.

Royalex is also a plastic sandwich, although it is constructed differently. The outside layers are vinyl, which is abrasion-resistant. Next comes ABS plastic (which is sometimes called "high-impact plastic") which adds impact resistance. In the middle is a layer of rigid foam which adds buoyancy and stiffness. Royalex is a little bit less durable than Crosslink3 , but still so durable that almost all whitewater canoes are made from it. They are lighter than Crosslink3 boats; in fact, Royalex is generally comparable in weight to fiberglass. Since the durability of Royalex is overkill for some people, some manufacturers use lighter-weight versions that are a little less durable, but are lighter and more easily carried than heavier versions. Again, match the function with the material.

One common feature to all plastic canoes is that the material imposes some limits on the designer. Complex shapes are difficult to mold into plastic hulls, and fine, streamlined entry lines cannot be made this way. Look at some plastic hulls and you will see that the bows are blunt compared to laminate boats. This will reduce your efficiency relative to wood and composites, but only at higher speeds. At normal paddling speeds, the hull shape is less important.

Ah, wood. Wood is the most traditional of all canoe constructions. Native designs were all crafted in wood, whether birchbark, dugout, cedar-plank sided, or any other construction method. If they had had the technology and the opportunity to build with Kevlar, I'm sure they would have secured some and availed themselves of the opportunity.

There are several types of wood canoes. The most common are cedar strip (also called strip-built canoes or strippers) and wood-canvas. Strip-built boats are made of edge-glued strips of wood (usually cedar, but occasionally other woods). Wood-canvas hulls have a wood frame which is skinned with painted canvas. If a canoe is skinned with fiberglass it will be a bit more durable, and will often be called wood-epoxy. The fiberglass can be clear (to show off the wood) or colored (to approximate the look of canvas). The beauty of wood boats can't be beat, and the material allows for very complex hull shapes, so wood canoes can be counted among the top performers.

Weight is an issue. With some wooden canoes, the builders just cannot approach the lightness of today's Kevlar featherweights. On the other hand, some of them are able with care and selective reinforcement. They will also require a commitment in terms of maintenance. Most people will find, however, that taking care of a wood canoe is a privilege, not a burden.

Composites (or laminates) are the material from which most of today's high-performance designs are made. The reasons for this will be outlined below, but the first questions to address is, what are composites? Technically, composites are combinations of two or more materials. In boat building, composites are usually composed specifically of cloth (of varying types) impregnated with resins. When these materials cure, they are stiff, strong, and lightweight. The cloth may be fiberglass, or some proprietary material. Tuf-weave is composed of fiberglass and polyester, and features an excellent strength-to-weight ratio at a moderate cost.

Kevlar is the most famous of the composites. Since Kevlar is used in bullet-proof vests, people assume that Kevlar hulls must be if not bulletproof then at least incredibly strong. In some ways they are, but in many ways they are comparable to fiberglass. The builder who uses Kevlar must make a choice. Some manufacturers will have opted for maximum weight savings, while others will sacrifice a bit of lightness for extra strength.

What is so great about composites? The first thing is their versatility. Composites can be formed into nearly any shape imaginable. Extremely complex curves and ultra-fine entry and exit lines are much easier to form in composites than in other materials, and with many materials, these are not possible at all.

Another great feature about composites is that although they are not the most durable materials out there, they are easy to repair. Both structural and cosmetic repairs can be made quite easily. Composites also offer the lightest weight options in canoe construction, so those long portages suddenly don't look so bad after all.