I just sort of stumbled into canoeing recently. My
friend from work, Jeff, had decided he was going to pick up a kayak for the
dual purpose of fishing and getting a little bit of exercise after work. He
lives right beside a great place to paddle, and I drive right past the same
spot on my way home too. Jeff and I have fished together many times, and we’re
somewhat competitive in regards to who is the least terrible fisherman. Once he
mentioned it, I decided the idea of a paddled craft was a great one, and
immediately began the hunt for a canoe. I’ve paddled canoes and kayak both, but
I really do prefer canoes. I find the seated position in a canoe, with room to
stretch your legs or bend your knees, much more comfortable than the nearly
straight-legged position that a kayak puts you in. In addition, I can bring
along most of my family, carry enough gear to camp should I attempt a multi-day
float trip, and my favorite reason - I can stand in a canoe. Kayaks may be a
bit easier to load and a little faster on the water, but to me the advantages
of a canoe made it an easy choice. I was able to find a local, lightly used
canoe on The Outdoors Trader that came with a tie-down kit. Picked it up and
brought it home and have been able to get it in the water about a dozen times
in the past few weeks.
As a new buyer of canoes, my expectations were, and are,
wonderfully low. My hopes were that it would float, be light enough to carry
myself, fit on my roof rack, not be an obnoxious color, and that was about it.
The canoe that I found and traded for ended up being a model made by Pelican,
that from what I can tell has had several names. It has been called the
Colorado and the Dakota, but seems to be most often called the Pelican 15.5,
referring to it’s overall length. Speaking of length, that’s a good place to
start… As I mentioned, the length is fifteen and a half feet. A long canoe is
17 – 18’, a short canoe 12 - 13’. The Pelican is comfortably in the middle. Fifteen
feet is a sufficient length to allow two people to paddle together, while not
being so long as to make the canoe overly clumsy when carried solo. There are quite
a few canoe shapes, all slight variations to my untrained eye, and different
shapes work better in different lengths/configurations of canoes. A short, solo
canoe might only have one seat, positioned more toward the middle, while a
tandem might have two or three seats built in. The Pelican has a rear seat,
middle seat, and forward seat, all made from molded plastic. The seats are
connected to the gunnels by screws and seem to be the most common area of
complain in regard to this model. Because they are plastic, they naturally wear
more quickly than wood or metal, and it is not uncommon for the seats to
crack at the place where they bend
upward and connect to the gunnel. The seat design could be much improved if
Pelican would switch to wood and lower the seats so that they are not nearly
level with the gunnel. Not only would the design switch prevent the cracking,
but it would also improve the stability of the boat by lowering the center of
gravity, even if just a little. From my reading, stability was the second most
common complaint. However, I have found this model to be exceedingly stable. I
paddle standing in the center with no difficulty and have not turned it over
yet. In moving water, the keel may present some new stability issues, but on
flatwater, stability is excellent. The seats on the Pelican extend down to the
floor of the canoe where they rest on an aluminum tube that extends the length
of the craft. The tube is set into the shallow keel and I believe that it’s
purpose is to prevent the floor from bending, or oil-canning.
The Pelican canoe isn’t going to be the fastest, or the
lightest, or the toughest, but for a basic canoe, it seems like a realistic
entry point for not too much money. It has put me on the water, and as long as
the seats don’t require repair, should last me a good while.
Length: 15.5’
Width: 36”
Weight: 81 lbs
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