What is a good quality canoe?

Question

I have gone canoeing a couple of times now, and now I am interested in buying my own. I want to get a canoe that is stable and is at a fair price. I do not want to spend too much though because I am just new to it. I will mostly me using it in a lake, but every now and then I will take it to a river. Can you please recommend a good canoe to me? Thanks!

Answer 1

You may be better off taking a canoeing course first. Find  the nearest such source. Do it yourself learning is difficult and dangerous.  Beginner canoes are often slow and clumsy but offer stability. As your skills increase you will want a canoe that is fast and manueverable. Find the nearest canoe/kayak club and ask questions. Run an ad in your local newspaper, 'Canoe wanted'.

Answer 2

I assume you are doing all flat-water canoeing, no whitewater?  There are canoes built specifically to handle rapids that are excellent quality but which aren't particularly good for flatwater paddling.

There are several things to consider when buying a canoe.  You can get a traditional wooden boat which looks great and paddles really well, but is high maintenance and heavy to move around.  Headwater www.headwatercanoe.com/  makes wooden boats that I know of.  I have friends that swear by theirs, but I haven't paddled this type.

Most recreational canoes are made of composites fibreglass. or plastic.  A company like Wenonah www.wenonah.com/ is well known for good quality boats, but there are many companies making good composite canoes.  Old Town is also a company with a good reputation:  www.oldtowncanoe.com/

I used to own a big old Coleman aluminum canoe.  Coleman makes very rugged boats without a lot of finesse or style, but which last for years.  Your basic knock-about boats.  Gruman also makes aluminum boats.  Sorry, I don't have a link for these.

But here's an interesting link that talks about all sorts of canoes, including plastic boats (which I know almost nothing about myself):  http://www.paddling.net/guidelines/showA...

I'm not canoeing these days, as I've gone on to whitewater boating.  But it can be a lot of fun.  It's a good idea to get proper training, it will raise your safety and confidence levels and make the experience a lot more fun in the long run.