Sehr gut boat control:
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Happy Winter Solstice! 🌇🌃
Ein bisschen German freesyle
- Thread starter Glenn MacGrady
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Wonder what a Swift canoe costs in Germany?
They no longer include the Keewaydin 14 in their catalog but you can special order it.
Just curious, do you know the spec's. Could probably search and find it somewhwere.
For the Keewaydin 14 you pay around 4'900.-- Euro (5'100.-- US-Dollars/7'300.-- Canadian Dollars) for the cheapest version.
Good googly moogly....that is an insane price.
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The picture used for the preview image in that video looks like how you'd get a dirt bike over a log by popping a wheelie. Someone needs to make a video of using that technique to get over a partially submerged tree across the river. Crawl to the stern to pop a wheelie, get the canoe halfway over the log, then crawl to the bow to slide off. 
Keewaydin 14 specs:
- Length: 14'
- Gunwale Width: 24"
- Maximum Width: 28"
- Waterline Width: 25"
- Centre Depth: 11.5"
- Bow Height: 18"
- Stern Height: 15"
- Bow Rocker: 2"
- Stern Rocker: 1"
We were thinking of buying one but ended up with a shorter, more stable canoe with symmetrical rocker.
Here ya go Punkinhead….
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I just knew there was a practical application of that move. I worked in Germany for years and never met one who wasn't practical.
I used the 2025 Swift price lists just the other day to configure a Dragonfly 15 with my ideal options and upgrades. It came to over $7800 USD before tax. Yeah, I'll take three of those when I'm reincarnated as Elon. In the real world, I executed a different plan.
Who is actually buying these things? Is there a select group of ultra rich canoeists out there? Most canoeists I have met wait to purchase until the bread is half stale at the grocery store and listed as 50% off.
Glenn, if you wanted a functional solo river tripping canoe, you can get a Dragonfly 15 in the expedition Kevlar layup for less than half your dream machine. Still a bit of money but in comparison with a Kevlar Curtis Dragonfly built in 1986 for $1279, a Kevlar Swift Dragonfly 15 costs just about the same in today's dollars. A Kevlar canoe in 1986 was an investment, same as today. All the extra bells and whistles of a $7800 canoe are a bit of a red herring.
Added: The analogy would be paying $80,000 for a Ford F-150 pickup truck; sure you can pay that much but it's still a pickup truck.
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Sorry if I deepen that rabbit hole but... (and, yes, anything that precedes the word "but" is just to be nice)
I think that all the time. Around here, they're turning farm land into condo communities at an alarming rate with signs at the entrance advertising "starting in the mid-400s" (like, almost a half-million USD for a "house" that's shares walls [and probably not thick enough walls] with other people's "houses" on both sides!)
I don't wanna live there, I just wanna know what those folks do to afford the mortgage. I'll go do it for 5 years and retire.
I think it would be really interesting to get a sales breakdown of what Swift actually sells and what keeps them afloat. How many of those $7500 canoes do they really sell as opposed to bread and butter tandems and solos that go to outfitters and "regular paddlers"? Are those super expensive hulls more of a show piece to draw interest and make their other hulls seem more affordable or do they actually sell enough of them to affect the bottom line?
Alan
Alan
The money is out there for a 7800.00 canoe. I just googled the average cost of a golf membership. It's 5000.00 to 60,000.00 a year, so even the cheapest ones wouldn't get you two years worth for your 7,800. Nobody bats an eye about that. A canoe can last a lifetime with almost no additional costs.
That's actually right in the ball park for an F150 in Canada right now. I don't know how people do it. If I win the lottery over the Christmas break, I'm gonna get a new truck, buy that $7800.00 (more like 10 G's Canadian) canoe and tour all the canoe shows in the States. I'm gonna get a fleece sock to put around my paddle, and wear a Tilley hat 24/7. I'm gonna pretend to like Hippy beer and frequent vegan restaurants. Heck, maybe I'll even go to Germany.
Who am I kidding, I can't even get through a 30 minute episode of The Price is Right without farting. Guess I'll stick to Spam and cheap beer, rusty pickups and beat up home made canoes.
Hey, I love Swift's technology and many of their hulls. In fact, I just bought my second Swift yesterday, which I'll post about when I have a few photos.
However, let me respond on a few points. Before tax, a Dragonfly 15 (or Keewaydin 15) in Expedition Kevlar is $3595 USD with (undesirable to me) aluminum gunwales, and is $4095 with the far more popular integrated carbon/Kevlar gunwales. The Expedition Carbon versions are $300 more. All those canoes are base models with absolutely no options or upgrades.
How about just a few of the truly dazzling array of some of those upgrades: $1000 for the carbon tech package, $2000 for Textreme fabric, $600 for epoxy resin, $200 for two-tone (bottom) gel coat, $200 for skid plates, $1000 for a custom logo, $1200 for Galaxy gel coat, and . . . my favorites . . . $400 for a carbon footbar and $700 for a carbon portage yoke. Holy Kamoly!
One can buy a black aluminum Wenonah footbar for $50, which I installed in my SRT 15 years ago when is was $40. The $700 carbon yoke costs more than my brand new Mad River Royalex Explorer in 1981 and my brand new Mad River ME in 1984. Even the Swift sassafras and cherry yokes cost $300 and $200, whereas one can buy a blank cherry or ash sculpted yoke for $50-$60 (from Eds and other places) and invest in two screw knobs from a hardware store for a few bucks.
Until yesterday, I had never spent more than $1400 on any of the seven other lightweight composite canoes I've bought, new or used, and still own: Kevlar Millbrook ME (new), Mike Galt Lotus BJX (new), Mike Galt Lotus Caper (new), Swift Winisk (new), Hemlock SRT (used, very good condition), Bell black-gold Wildfire (hardly used), Nova Craft Aramid Bob Special (used 6 times on a lake, showroom condition). In 2022, I did spend $2000 on a pristine Rollin Thurlow reproduction of a B.N. Morris wood/canvas canoe at an estate sale (including a custom-made Redleaf canoe cover), which I documented in a few threads here.
Finally, and I'm probably on old geezer outlier here, but my annual income in 1986 was significantly more than it is today. Actually, I think a lot of older folks on fixed incomes are in similar positions. Also, a lot of current young people are are unemployed or underemployed. Of course, there are a sufficient number upper middle class and wealthy folks on the continent, especially DINKs, to support a tiny handful of high end composite canoe vendors. It's a very small market.
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Old ways are the best ways
