Old school vs. new school canoe design.

[Idiot Savant]

I'm not sure who started it, maybe Ted Bell, maybe John Winters, Maybe David Yost.
Excluding variations of the Prospector, which seems like it will always be around and popular, most modern composite touring canoes are Swede form with asymmetrical rocker. If they are solo, their widest point is well up the side with a tuck-in just below the gunnels. I'm talking Northstar, Swift, Hemlock, etc., etc.
You know who doesn't design their canoes that way? Wenonah.
They like Swede form, but almost all their canoes have either no rocker or symmetrical rocker and their solo canoes have their widest point well down the side.
There is no question that Wenonah is a major player. If you rent a canoe for the Boundary Waters, there's a good chance it will be a Wenonah.
Why haven't they adopted the more modern design philosophy? Are they just old school or do they have a legitimate reason for not jumping on the modern bandwagon?

 

[Tsuga8]

My ignorant take is that Wenonah has more of a racing background. Their boats are meant for sit and switch with bucket seats and foot braces. I agree they do also seem to put BWCA first in mind - big lakes, long distances. Seems like the others have a more diverse set of paddling conditions in mind, including boats made more for kneeling, running rivers, and doing freestyle. I've never heard of anyone doing freestyle with a Wenonah. I know they make some boats for rivers and twisty creeks, but not like some other makers do. Again, I suspect a lot of it goes back to the racing background. But others here know lots more than I.

 

[MyKneesHurt]

Boats marketed to diverse paddling conditions, but also diverse paddler's skillsets. Anybody can hop into most Wenonahs and have a good time.

 

[Tsuga8]

Bit of context here:

Video: The Origin of Wenonah Canoe

A short video on the origin and history of the Wenonah Canoe Company by founder and owner Mike "Born to Paddle" Cichanowski.

www.canoetripping.net

 

[SouthernKevlar]

Although the big canoe producers market nationally, I think most canoes are designed with local conditions in mind. Consider the areas where Wenonah and Old Town canoes are made. Minnesota is known for it's big water and relatively flat terrain. Maine is known for it's mountains and wilder streams and rivers. The South-East that spawned Perception, Dagger and Mohawk are also in mountainous areas, except for the coastal regions and Florida where some smaller companies did make canoes more along the traditional lines. This leads me to believe that designs evolve to fit local conditions.

Another area that may have affected canoe design is the impact of Canoe Racing, Americans generally want to go fast. By incorporating the tested design advantages into canoes for the general population, a company can produce a lighter and faster canoe. These changes are appreciated by many canoe trippers when trying to make time and distance to their next campsite. The downside of this change is fewer "old school" designs for those looking for a canoe based on capacity and initial stability. The older designs can still be popular though; look at the many models of Prospectors and other current canoes designed along the lines of the traditional wood and canvas canoes.

Although it is a generalization, I do believe that canoe design is still mostly based on local conditions and that a craft optimized for one location or situation may not be best others. It's a big country out there with many different paddling environments. The search for the perfect canoe to match your area and paddling style can be a lot of fun in itself!

 

[Mason]

Some more discussion on Wenonah:

Wenonah Canoe – Kitchi-Gami

Posts about Wenonah Canoe written by Brian Day

kitchi-gami.com

 

[Jim Dodd]

Manufacturing, a straight sided hull, is much easier, than a tumblehomed hull.
Wenonah saw little reason, to stray away from the Jensen designs. As they have proven over the years.

 

[gumpus]

I would not call Wenonahs old school, just a different design philosophy. To me old school means the Blackhawks and discontinued Wenonah Moccasin and Pat Moore boats that are made for kneeling.

The Savage River Blackwater is a modern canoe considered to be the fastest touring canoe available and the design is just like a Wenonah with a relatively flat bottom and a bulge near the waterline to give you high initial stability and easily-accessible moderate secondary stability...so excellent for sitting paddlers in anything but the roughest conditions, but unsuitable for freestyle.

If you test paddle a Northstar they put the seats too low to kneel...so they don't scare beginners. I test paddled a Firebird and later said to the rep "it's a kneeling boat set up for sitting" and he smiled and said "yep". So maybe Wenonah was always ahead of the curve designing boats for the majority of people that like to sit and enjoy an efficient glide and tend to paddle in fair weather.

Specs can be extremely misleading since they are not standardized so cannot be compared across manufacturers. One can make big mistakes by just comparing specs and I see bad advice being given by folks that think they can comment on a boat based only on specs. Wenonah seems to list only front rocker or perhaps average rocker; they show 2.5 inches for Argosy when older catalogs show 2.5/1 (and the boat paddles more like 2.5/1). I can't tell which Wenonahs have symmetric rocker from their site. My white Osprey (John Winters) is listed at 1.5/1 but it has about twice the rocker of my Yost Merlin II (black) or Keewaydin 15 (red) which are listed at 2/1; the Osprey spins like a top and the Yost boats don't.