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After lunch on the Mullica River in the Jersey Pine Barrens last October, @Marc Ornstein said: "Glenn, do you want to paddle my boat?" I liked the maneuverability of the Illusion a lot. Hence, that short sentence is the direct cause of this purchase. If the sentence had never been uttered, my...

Speaking of alcohol, while I was under the influence of it once in college, a seemingly knowledgeable guy said if I sprayed Zippo cigarette lighter fluid on my arm and lit it, my skin wouldn't get burned. So, I did it on a small patch of my arm near the running sink in my dorm room and nothing...

For canoes, these protective layers along the stems and part of the keel are called "skid plates". We have many threads here discussing whether and when skid plates are needed—people disagree—and how to make and install them with many photos. Use the site's search function for the term "skid...

Good points. Yes, I do lock and even double lock my seat and/or thwarts onto my racks when away from home. I never thought about loosening the straps a bit, but that seems like a reasonable precaution. Another interesting point. I wonder if a canoe cover makes that possibility better, worse or...

I have Bag Lady/RedLeaf custom covers for my Morris wood-canvas canoe and my Swift Keewaydin 15 because those covers came with both canoes when I bought them on the used market. However, I've only used those covers for storage purposes and have never used them for cartopping travel. The Morris...

I've bought a new Savage River Illusion canoe, which cost more money than I ever imagined I would spend. To lighten the weight, which was one of my primary objectives in getting the canoe, it's made of Textreme carbon and Kevlar with an outer layer that is a so-called skin coat—i.e., no gelcoat...

I think I've mixed up two Idaho cities in my memory of that trip. Only Boise has an REI, so I probably just stopped there to buy the headlamp and some other stuff. The city further east where I stayed overnight, and that had mesas and plateaus near it, was Twin Falls. I distinctly remember being...

Thanks. For those who don't want to open the PDF, here's the opening graph:

This site is really thorough and well-organized: https://www.newenglandwaterfalls.com/ The following page from the website has pictures of the top 40 waterfalls of New England. I've seen some of them and canoed upstream many times to the base of 40-foot Grand Falls on the Dead River, Maine...

RR, great description of your run and the Penobscot. Kudos also to the photographers who caught all those stages of your descent and surfing. From the photos, I would have run the same line you did down the right side and then angling through the chute. In the following video, three Old Town...

This is an excellent thread topic on a very difficult issue. As a member of the board of directors of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, I can say that we and many boards before us constantly struggle with the even more niche question: How to get more people interested in and involved with...

In the summer of 2004, I was driving back to Connecticut from Sacramento, California, paddling my new Huki outrigger canoe in various places in the U.S. and Canada. One day I paddled Hosmer Lake in Oregon and was next on my way to paddle in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. I stopped...

As I understand Swift's laminates for the Kevlar Lite construction, the difference between your two laminate options is that one would have an outer layer of red polyester with clear gelcoat, and the other would have an outer layer of basalt/Innegra with clear gelcoat plus epoxy resin instead of...

I want to make perfectly clear that I have never stabbed nachos with my spork.

Voila! Two thread starts yesterday plus four today yield a second all-time number of posts today, 94. Plus 194 thread reactions (likes, etc.). And this was with a lower than average number of active users today, which is typical on weekends. Satisfying also is that none of the 94 posts were...

This has been a reasonable discussion sticking to the issues, not the politics, of a proposed project that is controversial. If that's so, the project will be halted by the courts in an appropriate lawsuit. Related to the current scope of NEPA, as I discussed in another thread, in May 2025 a...

I didn't realize Penetrol works on oxidized plastic as well as oxidized composite canoes. The way I understand how it works is that the oxidation creates zillions of micro-pits in the outer layer of the hull. When light strikes these micro-pits, it reflects off in all directions, resulting in a...

Ambiguous terminology strikes again. There are two different utensils called "sporks". One utensil has a spoon on one end and a fork on the other (perhaps including a cutting edge, too). The other utensil is a spoon with small tines on the end. Here are a variety of sporks. I once had the...

Al, I've paddled whitewater extensively on various sections of the upper Hudson River and, for other reasons, am very familiar with Glens Falls. I don't associate whitewater or whitewater courses with Glens Falls. Do you perhaps mean The Glen on the upper Hudson? I remember kayak and rafting...

Oh my. I have to look at a map of North America. That's the only continent on which I've paddled. Maine (where I started canoeing every summer from age 8) New Hampshire Vermont Massachusetts Connecticut New York New Jersey Delaware Maryland Virginia North Carolina South Carolina Georgia Florida...