Getting the boat ready for first trip of the year.

[Idiot Savant]

I'm planning on going on a weekend canoe trip in early May.
I've decided that my Esquif Echo is the best tool for the job.
Last fall, I loaned it to a fellow club member who took it on two pretty major trips. First, about seven days on the Upper Missouri and then ten days going through Labyrinth and Stillwater Canyons.
Afterwards, it went straight from the top of her car to my garage and has been there ever since.
This morning, I spent some time getting it ready for my trip.
After adjusting the foot braces to my long legs and sitting in it, I decided the gunnels needed some padding where my knees hit. Luckily, I had some adhesive backed closed cell foam that seemed to work just fine.
Then I turned the canoe over and did something that is probably controversial. The big dents aren't what slows a boat down, it's all the little scratches, so I go over the hull with steel wool and smooth out all the sharp edges. Then I give it a coating of wax.
I turned the boat back over again and went over all the woodwork with steel wool and then gave it another coat of Watco.
I found a rivet that needs replacing, but I saved that for another day.

 

[riverstrider]

After adjusting the foot braces to my long legs and sitting in it, I decided the gunnels needed some padding where my knees hit. Luckily, I had some adhesive backed closed cell foam that seemed to work just fine.

Funny, I've rarely heard complaints from anyone about their knees coming in contact with the gunnels, even though I'm betting it happens a lot. And, as it happens, the one person who I have heard complain about that is my wife, and a few years ago we came up with a pretty good solution. We cut up a pool noodle to a length of about 6 or 8 inches, sliced them down one side, and fit that over the gunnels. Worked like a charm! Although the adhesive foam idea would help with the one problem that the pool noodles have given us: when we have to crash our way through branches or shrubs, sometimes the noodles get swept off the canoe and have to be recovered.

 

[yknpdlr]

As a primary race bow paddler, my feet are regularly squished in the narrowing bow directly in front of my seat. I have various configurations and thicknesses of rigid foam blocks to press my feet against. Depending on the boat, for long marathon races, I often attach squares of thin foam padding where my knees contact the side walls of the hull, along with pool noodles duct taped covering along the gunwales where my knees may contact. The noodles serve double duty as shoulder pads during long overland carries with canoe turned upside down. But in recent years I have learned to invite a couple of. younger race team mates who prefer to carry a C4 canoe on the run upright on their shoulders without any padding.

 

[gumpus]

Just a comment that if you've never removed the thwarts and seat to oil the ends it's probably worth doing at least once in a boat's lifetime. I bought a used canoe that the owner had varnished but unfortunately he didn't bother to do the ends. In my experience thwarts only fail at the ends.

 

[ppine]

Loaning canoes to people is a risky proposition.
I let a friend use an almost new canoe on a river I knew had plenty of rocks in it. I rented it to him and about half what it cost another guy to rent a canoe. My friend was not insulted and I felt much better looking at all the scratches on my boat.

 

[Alan Gage]

I've rarely heard complaints from anyone about their knees coming in contact with the gunnels, even though I'm betting it happens a lot. And, as it happens, the one person who I have heard complain about that is my wife,

Mike McCrea is your wife?

Alan