What was the worst canoe you ever owned or paddled?

[Blukanu]

An old Grumman aluminum.

I was probably 12 yrs old and it was given to me and my friend because it was folded over, got pinned around a tree in flood waters. We cut out the damaged middle section and joined the ends back together with numerous bolts and tons of caulk.

Boat was crooked, short and weighed a ton. Yet we had many adventures in that thing. We’d get a parent to drop us off at a bridge, float down the river and camp at a spot nearest my friends house. We’d camp until our supply of Doritos, hotdogs and Pepsi ran out. Then we’d drag that boat and our gear through the woods back to his house.

Many years later, someone stole that canoe from my parent’s yard. Must have been for the aluminum scrap because it was a horrible canoe. That kind of bums me due to the sentimental value.

 

[ppine]

I have never owned any bad canoes. My first one was wrecked and I paid $25 for it. It took major repairs for the old Sawyer Cruiser, but I paddled it for years and sold it for $400 in the 1990s.

We paddled a lot of rental Grumman aluminum canoes over the years. At the time they were fine. A little too heavy and a little too slow, but they carried big loads and their blunts ends were good in waves.

 

[Black_Fly]

Coleman. Waste of money. Too heavy to load, impossible to paddle alone. Used it on a small farm pond with my young children.

 

[Punkinhead]

My "worst" was actually a great canoe used for the wrong purpose. During covid when anything outdoor related was unobtanium I wanted a solo canoe for fishing on relatively flatwater rivers with nothing above class 1 rapids. A 1990's vintage Dagger Impulse popped up on Craigslist and I bought it. It's a whitewater boat that's wide and deep with 4" of rocker. While I'm sure it's a good whitewater boat it's completely wrong for how I tried to use it. When I'd come up on a deep section with no current and the wind picked up it was a miserable experience. I ended up giving it to my brother who still paddles whitewater. An Old Town Discovery popped up so I bought that but it's not much better. Fortunately covid supply chain issues are behind us.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

There seems to be a pattern here. Worst canoe I ever paddled was a borrowed Coleman with the Internal tubing frame. It was the second canoe I was ever in (the first being a Grumman) and it made me not want to have a canoe for a long time. Those two brands were all I was aware of at the time.

The worst canoe I've owned was also arguably the prettiest - a Navarro Legacy. It was the first thing I saw that looked good enough to buy after I decided that a canoe would be a good idea. 13' x 39", with a keeled flat bottom. Fiberglass with wood trim and decorative ribs, it was a beautiful pig of a boat. Still miles ahead of the Coleman, and good enough to serve as a gateway drug.