1$ Canoe

[dougd]

Saw a Mad River ME for sale on CL yesterday for 1$. Emailed and will be picking it up tomorrow after work. It's in rough shape and will need some work but what the hell, for 1$ I'm in! I don't really need another project boat but I just couldn't resist! I really need some kinda 12 step program or therapy or something as I keep doing this and I don't need another WW hull, already have my Courier! Man, I really got stop doing this to myself!


https://nh.craigslist.org/boa/d/wolfeboro-mad-river-me/6832564744.html

dougd

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Wow, that is rough! Nowhere to go with that but up.

 

[dougd]

Yeah, you're right about that Steve but I think I've fixed worse!

 

[Odyssey]

Yeah, but you should've seen the other guy.

 

[Jim Dodd]

I'd say you made a Super Deal ! That Seat is worth, way more than the canoe !

Great Catch Doug !

I believe it's better to have more than you can get done, than to be sitting around Twiddling your Thumbs !

Jim

 

[pblanc]

The Mad River ME is an extremely cool boat. Fast, for a whitewater hull, and you will find it massively more maneuverable than your Courier. I bought a Royalex version a few years ago that had been pinned once or twice and had a lot of cracks. It had been regunwaled however, with synthetic gunwales that were in good shape, so I didn't need to mess with those. There is a reason that the ME was the predominant whitewater open boat hull for around 10 years running.

Here is a photo album showing the work I did to restore my ME if you are interested:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42020723@N02/albums/72157657942924708

 

[dougd]

Thanks for posting that. Glad to hear a kudos for an old classic. Going to be an interesting rebuild. Cold cracks have had their way with me in the past an Eclipise with lots of cracks to fix. Seemed to drink in the resin during the fix. When I get it and fix it I am hoping to get a run in somewhere to try it out. With the rocker in its build I have no doubt it will handle better then my Courier but dang I do love that hull. Will see how it all turns out. Appreciate your input!

 

[Guest]

Cold cracks have had their way with me in the past an Eclipise with lots of cracks to fix.

What was the continued-to-cold-crack canoe that became a worm farm?

I know that you are accomplished at regunwaling with wood, have access to suitable length boards and can do so less expensively than with vinyl. Any thoughts on using wood (and screws) again on an RX hull already proven susceptible to cold cracks?

Beyond the cold crack potential gunwale material preference, for my purposes, is dictated by storage. For inside or at least under cover storage wood is good. For storage outside in the elements I would prefer vinyl or aluminum.

I have passed along or sold cheap a bunch of rebuilds to friends; knowing many lacked inside storage space for a canoe, and suspecting that others would never bother to maintain wood gunwales, I was most comfortable using vinyl gunwales.

Well, not “comfortable”; my hand hurts after installing 70 or so pop rivets.

This thread, with a canoe that cold cracked in 2012, 2015 and 2018, makes me leery of any canoe that has presented cold cracks.

Unlike your standard Royalex ME that canoe was another cold cracked R-lite hull (with aluminum gunwales).

http://myccr.com/phpbbforum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=39795

That makes me even leerier of R-lite/R84 type Royalex in cold climes.

BTW, the Royalex ME was made up until 1995. It is a Vermont build, and maybe pre-dates the 1990/91 production of lesser Royalex sheets.

I’ll be curious about the year of manufacture on the HIN.

That Seat is worth, way more than the canoe

True dat, those old Perception saddles still have a place, especially with some custom padding. Not sure how Doug feels about that seating. If it’s a flipper (no pun intended) it might be easiest to clean up that saddle and reinstall.

 

[dougd]

Got the boat today. Rough is a kind word to say about it but still has potential. What I found interesting is the HIN:

MADB3225M8 4 11

There's a space between the 8 and the 4 and then another space between the 4 and 11. I'll post a picture tomorrow. Any clue on this HIN? I've seen some strange ones in the past this is really different.

 

[Odyssey]

Should be fun and no pressure Doug. Consider this canoe a blank canvas so to speak. Nothing to lose and everything to gain.

 

[Guest]

What I found interesting is the HIN:

MADB3225M8 4 11

There's a space between the 8 and the 4 and then another space between the 4 and 11. I'll post a picture tomorrow. Any clue on this HIN? I've seen some strange ones in the past this is really different.

That is some weird spacing. I don’t see its like in HIN explanations over the years.

http://www.hinsearchplus.com/hs_userguide.aspx

 

[pblanc]

There are too many characters in that HIN (13). All HINs have 12 alphanumeric characters regardless of format. The "M" denotes a "model year" format and the two characters after the M should denote the year of registration (1984). The next character after that should be a letter denoting the month of registration. I suspect that the "1 1" characters are actually a worn letter "H" which would make the month of manufacture March 1984.

 

[dougd]

Thanks Peter, I'll take another look today. Just seemed a little strange to me.

 

[dougd]

Here's a few pictures of the beast. It needs a good cleaning which will have to wait for warmer weather but in the meantime I'll drill a hole at the bottom of the cracks to prevent them from spreading. I'm a little worried about the hull as it was store outside for most of it's life according to the owner. Considering he had a 3 stall garage I found it hard to believe he didn't find a place inside to store them. To each their own but sad. The saddle needs a good clean up and new foam as well as the knee pads. Will see as the work starts probably in April or May as how sound the hull is. Regardless, it's kind of nice to have a little piece of canoeing history! For free, yes, the owner didn't want a penny even though I tried to hand him a dollar and even offered to buy him a 6 pack of choice. No was the answer. Into the barn it goes for storage until the weather turns!

dougd

 

[Guest]

The HIN on the 84 RX Explorer, punched into the Royalex 35 years ago is (almost) fully readable only under a bright, angled flashlight for some shadow contrast.

Sometimes a pencil rubbing transfer onto paper helps bring out the indistinguishable. It didn’t help much with the ancient Explorer, but it only takes seconds to try.

When you start taking it apart I’ll be curious if it shows hole-sign of having been regunwaled once before.

Before and after weights too please. MRC speced the Royalex ME at 55 – 57 lbs (gunwale dependant) in 1992, but back in 1984 could be some seriously thick (and heavier) RX.

Pblanc provided a wealth of saddle information in this thread:

http://www.canoetripping.net/forums/...cl-ii-daytrips

His pedestal seat data is too valuable to be lost in the archives.

I have both a Perception rotomolded saddle and a Bob Foote rotomolded Grand Canyon saddle sitting around. I might try to weigh them later today. My guess is the weight is about the same for both.

Someone in Salt Lake City was interested in buying my Bob Foote saddle. I looked into shipping costs for the smallest box I could build for it and found, because of its length and girth dimensions, it would cost about $75 to ship, and that was several years back. The Foote saddle was designed to be removable and required five vinyl patches to be bonded to the hull bottom that received 1 inch nylon straps that went through molded slots in the saddle to hold it in place on the bottom of the boat. Additional D ring patches were required for the outboard thigh strap anchor points. The system worked tolerably well but there was always a bit of wiggle and the straps loosened a bit and needed to be retightened several times during each day trip. On one memorable trip, I took my Dagger Prophet with Bob Foote saddle to east Tennessee to paddle the Tellico River, and when I got there I found that three of the five hull bottom patches had come loose. The other two gave way in the first or second rapid and I found myself sitting on a saddle that was no longer attached to the boat. I tried to put in a hard low brace at Class III Bounce off Boulder and the saddle and I both came out of the boat in a big hole.



The Perception saddle mounted using two thwarts securing the top of the saddle and required a block of foam to mount it atop. The thickness of the foam block depended on the depth of the canoe. If correctly done, the saddle did not need to be attached permanently to the foam block. It was a pretty solid mount, but it would not have been very easy to remove if a removable pedestal was desired.



Of the two, I found the Bob Foote saddle the better choice. The seating surface could be widened by bonding thin slabs of minicell foam to the vertical sides of the saddle body with contact cement. The wings on the front of the saddle provided good separation for the thighs and something to brace them against.



The Perception saddle was very easy to use once mounted. It was really a precursor to the minicell foam bulkhead pedestals that many whitewater open boaters use these days. You didn't need any straps as you could brace your thighs beneath the wings of the saddle. The problems with it was that unless you were small, the wings required the knees to be too close together. And you couldn't adjust or contour the wings to fit different sizes of legs. Both saddles provided "dry storage" that wasn't entirely dry. If you weren't careful, small items could get wedged into crevices inside the saddle making them difficult to retrieve.

These days I would not recommend either saddle. They are just too heavy and do not allow enough customization. I have two canoes for which I have made removable minicell pedestals that mount to vinyl "daisy chain" attachment points bonded to the hull bottom using synthetic straps that run through holes in the pedestal:

Pete provided comparative weights too:

OK, I weighed some pedestals. These weights should be considered estimates. They were obtained by weighing myself on a digital bathroom scale holding the item(s) and subtracting my weight without the items. The margin of error is probably around .2 lb.

I weighed the Bob Foote Grand Canyon saddle with the attached plastic Perception Keepers foot braces that came with it, but without the dry box or two bicycle canteen water bottles that came with it. The weight includes the five vinyl patches and synthetic straps required to attach the canoe to the hull bottom, plus the pair of contoured thigh straps and the 2 one inch D rings required to secure the outboard ends of the straps. My saddle might be slightly heavier than stock because I did glue some 1" thick slabs of minicell foam to the saddle's sides to increase the width of the seating surface.

Weight of Bob Foote saddle as above: 11.2 lbs

I weighed a Perception saddle along with a pair of plastic Perception Keepers foot braces. Most often, the Perception saddles were set up with aluminum Yakima foot braces, but since I weighed the Foote saddle with the plastic foot brace kit, the comparison seemed fair. Note that this weight does not include the foam block that was needed to block the saddle up on. The saddle footprint measures about 32' long by 6" wide, and the foam block would sometimes need to be as thick as 3" for deep canoes. I have also not included the weight of the foot brace mounting hardware or the hardware required to secure the saddle to the thwarts. Of course, the saddle could be used without foot braces, or with fixed toe blocks, but most often the saddles were set up with the Yakima braces either secured to the saddle itself or the foam block the saddle sat on. My guess is that the foam block and mounting hardware for the foot braces and the saddle itself would add about another pound to the weight below or possibly a little more.

Perception saddle as above: 8.6 lbs

I weighed a simple minicell pedestal without foot braces. This pedestal measures 14" long by 14" high (at the top of the seat back) by 9" wide and has a seating surface 8 1/2" high.

Minicell pedestal without foot braces: 1.4 lbs

A minicell pedestal of very similar dimensions but with a set of attached short Yakima foot braces secured to an additional minicell "outrigger" measuring about 9" wide by 6" long by 4.25" high:

Minicell pedestal with short Yakima foot braces and minicell outrigger: 3.4 lbs

The minicell pedestals do not include the weight of a pair of thigh straps and 4 D rings required to anchor the thigh straps, which the majority of whitewater boaters would probably choose to add. The weight for the Foote saddle did include the weight of the straps and D rings. Some people even used straps with the Perception saddle, although most did not.

Pair of contoured thigh straps and four 1" D rings: 1 lb.

I did not include the weight of foam kneeling pads with any of the above as the weight would be approximately the same for all of the pedestals.

Doug, aside from the cold cracks that grimy hull might clean up nicely with your miracle mix of 50/50 vinegar and Dawn.

When is garden hose spraying and scrubbing weather in New Hampshire? Near 70 here tomorrow.

EDIT: Crap, Pete's photos don't appear

 

[pblanc]

The old Perception roto-molded saddles deserve some credit for their durability and the fact that they were the original bulkhead saddle. I have had them installed in a couple of boats in the past, and still have one kicking around in the garage somewhere. Like the more modern minicell bulkhead saddles in many of today's whitewater open boats, they were simple to use. No straps to get into or adjust. And they did add some semi-dry storage capability, although rather less space than one might expect from looking at the exterior of the saddle.

I personally won't use them anymore primarily because of their weight, and the fact that they require knees to be positioned too close together for me in most boats, but if you don't mind the weight they are still probably a viable option for some. Although the polyethylene can not be custom shaped and fitted, the saddles can be "fit" to the paddler to a limited extent by modifying the height of the foam block they are mounted on, and adding minicell foam to the undersides of the "wings" and the saddle top and shaping that.

If you plan to use the Perception saddle, check to make sure that the O-ring in the hatch cover ring is still present and not entirely deteriorated. That hatch cover was a standard size used on many kayaks, and replacements used to be available, although I have not looked for them for some time. The ring of the hatch cover also often did not mate with the molded poly too well. I used to seal around the ring with silicone caulk. And the bolts that go through the top of the saddle at the front thwart attachment point usually also provide a point for water entry. Again, that can be reduced by applying some silicone caulk around the bolts themselves inside the saddle, and using some nylon washers under the nuts. Be sure to use stainless hardware there.

You really don't want a lot of water leaking into that saddle if you have a mishap, even if it its empty of gear. It will get heavy in a hurry, and it is not easy to empty water out of it either.

 

[Guest]

The oldest full specs I have on the Royalex ME are from a 1992 MRC catalog:

15’ 2” long
Extreme rocker, asymmetrical, shallow arch
6” freeboard 680 lbs
55 – 57 lbs
Four inch waterline 28 ½”
30” gunwale width (flared hull)
24/15/24 inches deep
$900 - $1000 MSRP in 1992 dollars
Piece of 1984 Vermont RX history – priceless.

An old MRC catalog offers this prose:

The easy-to-roll ME has 8” of rocker, a highly flared bow and stern, and maximum depth, allowing paddlers to lay the hull gunwale deep for strong downstream lean-ins, peel outs and ferries.

The finesse-oriented hull exceeds at rigorous whitewater maneuvers, and the ME has the responsiveness to catch the tiniest eddy, surf rollers, play difficult holes and accelerate quickly for upstream ferries.

That blushing-bride catalog prose is circa early 90’s. YMMV as you are laying in, catching tiny eddies and playing difficult holes. And rolling.

 

[pblanc]

The ME hull is interesting in that it paddles with the straight line speed of a canoe with a longer waterline length, yet spins and turns like a much shorter boat. And its rocker and high ends keep it quite dry when paddled as a solo. Using it as a tandem could be another story depending on the weight of the team.

But 15' 2" is 15' 2' no matter how you slice it. Which meant that you could not necessarily fit it into the tiniest eddy.

 

[dougd]

Super Beater! Gawd dang, I like that! Nice job Peter!

 

[Iskweo]

Doug.....were you around Robin when he was in a contagious phase? It would appear that you are infected now. Sadly there is no known cure.

Christine