Mohawk Blazer 16

[WolfmansBrother]

Last weekend I picked up a Mohawk Blazer 16. It's an '82. The red has faded, but other than that it's in great shape. It was a bargain.

The canoe is 16' long and 36" wide. I don't know how much it weighs. It's heavy, but I am able to get it on and off the car by myself, so it's manageable whatever it is.

It's my first tandem canoe. I had my daughter out with me the first day I got it and it paddled well. Earlier in the week I went out solo and it cruised. I sat in the bow facing backward and used a double-bladed kayak paddle. I put a dry bag filled with water up front as ballast. It was windy but I wasn't getting pushed around too much. It cut through headwinds well.

I have a trip to Middle Saranac coming up this weekend where I will be loading it up with camping gear and doing some fishing out of it. I'm looking forward to seing how it does. I'll report back.

Below is a shot from when I had it out on the Hudson the other night.

 

[recped]

 

[WolfmansBrother]

The weather was windy, cold, and rainy, so I didn't get out fishing. I did fish a bit from shore with no luck.

I brought the kitchen sink on this trip, and the canoe handled the load with room to spare. On the water it was fast and it tracked well. It felt pretty stable.

I'm finding it to be a good general purpose canoe.

 

[Eddie2002]

I have a Mohawk 17 4 made in 1980 which I day paddle as a solo down here in Florida. Not sure why Mohawk did it, but they built it with an extra thwart right behind the front seat which is in the way when seating backwards to paddle solo. I ended up making a drop in mesh seat that gets my weight just a little back from center. Your 16 foot is a nice one and without that extra thwart is great for a solo paddler. Have you tried a double bladed kayak paddle yet they work great for solo paddlers.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Congrats. It's always nice to find a bargain canoe that works well. Mohawk was a big name in canoes in the 80's, 90's and 00's. Is it Royalex or composite?

 

[Eddie2002]

It's the banana yellow fiberglass model and weighs in at around 75lbs and it is great for paddling around the local lakes and water ways. For an older Mohawk it is in fantastic shape, think it spent most of its life in a storage shed and at $100 it was a steal. Here's a picture of it with the wide drop in mesh seat I made. Nothing special but a lot of fun.

 

[WolfmansBrother]

Mine is fiberglass.

I have used it with a double-bladed kayak paddle both solo and tandem. At the moment I own two kayak paddles and zero traditional canoe paddles, so I don't really have a choice, but I like the speed that the double-bladed paddle offers anyway.