Canoe cover for travel?

[SouthernKevlar]

I have recently purchased a brand new canoe, a rarity for me. It is a Northstar in Blacklight layup and is beautiful. I have already put my first very small scratch on it and figure that more will come with use.

Since it is still relatively pristine, I am debating getting a canoe cover (Red Leaf/Bag Lady style) to protect the canoe while travelling. I have never used a canoe cover and I have never noticed damage to a canoe from riding on my racks, but the shiny new Blacklight exterior would seem to show damage should it appear. I know racers often use the to protect their craft while travelling, but I wonder if it is a worthwhile investment for a general purpose canoe that will probably get scratches over time anyway?

What are your thoughts on this subject?

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

David, like you, I have seen racers frequently use canoe covers while cartopping. I believe that's usually because they have non-gelcoated Kevlar hulls that they are protecting from UV damage. That makes sense, especially if one leaves the canoe on top of a vehicle semi-permanently during paddling season.

I've also seen some folks use canoe covers for expensive new canoes, especially painted wood/fabric canoes.

I personally have never used a canoe cover while cartopping for any of my 20 canoes, some of them new composites, over the past 45 years, and I don't recall ever suffering any sort of road damage to them. Perhaps that would have been different had I routinely driven on gravel or dirt roads or if I had been more fastidious about preserving canoe virginity than I am.

A Red Leaf/Bag Lady canoe cover did come with my purchase my most recent canoe 15 months ago, a virtually as-new Rollin Thurlow reproduction of a B.N. Morris wood/canvas canoe. You can see the cover on the ground in this picture.



While Red Leaf has videos showing how easy it is to put the cover on, even when a canoe is atop a car, I find the process to be somewhat of a hassle. Therefore, I have never actually used the cover when transporting the canoe on top of my car or even when it is closer to ground on my trailer. I'm just not worried enough. Besides, putting the cover on a wet canoe after a day paddle with perhaps some dirt or gravel stuck on the bottom, and perhaps at an inconvenient take-out, makes little sense to me, especially if I'm just driving on paved roads.



I do put the cover on the canoe when it is stored in the garage during the off season.

 

[GeoBoy]

I have always used a Bag Lady canoe cover on my canoes. Red Leaf Design makes a beautiful cover, that’s what I cover my Blacklite Northstar Trillium with. I always towel dry my boat off before I cover it, toweling it off also makes sure there is no sand/dirt on the boat before covering it.

 

[Gamma1214]

What are your thoughts on this subject?

Since you asked... I understand keeping things a nice as possible, especially when the investment is large(ish). For me, however, I wouldn't cover it or even bother to repair scratches unless they clearly got into the weave of the fabric.

Then again, I can't remember having ever even washed my '94 Ranger. I am the reason that I can't have nice things but I just want functional things so I don't care.

 

[SouthernKevlar]

Hey Glenn, that is one purty canoe!
Geoboy, thanks for the info. I would not have thought about sand and grit trapped under the cover.

I had assumed that the cover would be mostly for damage mitigation (both physical and UV based), but then I wondered if the thickness of the fabric would protect the hull from a flying stone at highway speeds. If not, what would be the major threat that the cover would protect against since I am not too concerned about the UV issue with indoor canoe storage. Has any member had a canoe damaged that would have been protected by having a cover?

I like the idea of a cover, but now I am wondering about it's usefulness and purpose when cartopping a canoe.

 

[memaquay]

Probably be a pain, I can hear fabric flapping in the wind. I've car topped countless canoes many thousands of kilometers and can't recall ever receiving any damage, other than a few bug guts.

 

[yknpdlr]

Yes, at canoe races you will see many arriving with fabric covers. I believe the main advantage is protection against UV during long hours of travel under the sun. I live close enough to most Adironack races so that I feel my cartop UV exposure is quite limited. Covers are not inexpensive and If I had one for each type of canoe I own, the expense would cut into my abiliity to purchase my next canoe.

However, when I transported a C4 to the Yukon race in Whitehorse from NY and back from Dawson City a couple of years ago, I had a well fitted Bag Lady cover on it for the week-long trips.

 

[clemency]

I have covers for both canoes, but only because I store outside. I take them off before transporting the canoes anywhere.

 

[Alan Gage]

I had bag lady covers that came with a couple used racing canoes. I used them because I had them. They were lightweight, packed small, easy to install, and didn't flap at all.

Alan

 

[MrPoling]

I have a blackgold Bell solo. The finish is robust and only has scratches from truly ugly incidents. I cover it when it gets home to protect it while sliding it under the house or while leaving it in the garage.

I don't use the cover on the way to the river. The biggest risk the cover would protect is scratches from the buckles, which can be avoided anyway. Greater damage, like from a crash or tie down failure, won't be helped by the cover.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I wondered if the thickness of the fabric would protect the hull from a flying stone at highway speeds.

My Bag Lady cover is not the waterproof material, but double knit polyester. It's stretchy and breathable and not thin like nylon or Dacron. It could have some slight protective cushioning effect against scratching by a small stone or branch that glances against the hull, if those things are likely, but I doubt the cover would provide much denting protection against a straight on impact by a stone of any size.

I also wonder about what happens to such a cover when driving through rain. It will be a sopping, heavy thing. I don't think that will hurt the wooden parts of a canoe in the short run, but you would have to take it off and dry it out before using it again, and I have no idea how long that would take. Maybe if you are driving at high speed in summer heat after the rain, it would dry out fairly quickly on top of a vehicle, but that may not be the case in cool climates or shoulder seasons.

 

[memaquay]

I remember a certain canoetripping member sent me a paddle sleeve, to poke fun at my obvious disdain for them. I promptly turned it into a gun sleeve, and have used it quite a bit. I can see that a canoe sleeve might actually have some practicality, but it ranks up there with paddle sleeves for me. Of course, I become more curmudgeonly daily, so my opinion is flavoured by my general disdain for humanity, but a Bag Lady cover will never be in my future. How much does one of those things cost anyway?

 

[tketcham]

I never used a canoe cover for traveling but did purchase a couple of Red Leaf/Lady Bug bags to protect the hulls of our tandem canoes while being stored in the garage. I hang them by strap slings from the ceiling, hull down, so they are exposed to afternoon sun (through a garage door window) on a regular basis. I noticed the color of the Kevlar had changed on our expedition tandem more on the end that was closer to the window due to UV exposure. (Because of the differences in bow/stern profiles the canoe fits best hanging in one direction.) Not a big difference but enough for me to pay attention to reducing the damage that was occurring. I plan on keeping those canoes around for many years so the cost of the bags are like an insurance premium.

Although I figured we could use the covers while traveling, I don't use them as much as I assumed I would. Definitely if the canoes will be on the roof racks for days at a time while on a trip. I also use the covers for long day trips; I'll leave the cover on getting to the put-in but don't bother putting the cover back on traveling home. The interesting thing is that there's noticeably less road noise when the covers are on the canoes. Sort of like owl feathers.

We have DIY canoe blankets for the solo canoes sitting on wall racks in the garage to protect them from UV exposure but I probably won't get travel covers for them since we don't often travel very far with solo canoes. Still, we have one solo that's 40 years old and it would be nice to slow the UV deterioration because it's such a classic canoe and still in good shape. So, I'm considering getting a Red Leaf/Bag Lady cover for that one. Maybe.

 

[Nick Pending]

I don't have any experience with canoe covers myself and tend to agree with memaquay above on their usefulness -- at least for me, as I have inside storage capacity for all my boats that excludes UV (no windows). Others have different conditions, of course.

One aspect of this I was introduced to back in 2015 on my last fly-in trip to the upper Stikine River in Northern BC was interesting. My wife and I flew in to Happy Lake, and our pilot utilized what he called a "canoe cover" to reduce wind drag the boat caused as an outside load on his Cessna 207 plane. He said that the effect is very noticeable to him as a pilot in drag reduction, plane handling, and fuel savings. The cover he had was just a large spray deck with no cockpit openings and made of a heavy waterproof material. I think it was designed for a 17 foot canoe as it didn't completely cover the opening on our 18-1/2 foot Wenonah Odyssey, but he said that little bit wouldn't matter much.

Someone may want to experiment with this effect on roof-racking boats on cars for transport to the river and back home again after as reported by tketcham just above with his comment of reduced road noise in the vehicle. This could be quite helpful in small cars, or especially those trying this with electric vehicles in the future. I'm not sure it would be real worthwhile for short-distance trips in gasoline cars or trucks, but for long-distance transport it might be worth the investment. For instance I very seldom paddle within a thousand miles of my house. I have never looked for canoe cover makers, don't know where the flight service out of Smithers got theirs, didn't ask, but if anyone knows of them, let us know here please. Anyone else have anything to add or report on this phenomenon?

 

[SouthernKevlar]

I had not thought about the possibilities of "aerodynamic improvement" and a potential gas savings It would probably take a lot of driving to make up the cost difference, although I do head north to the BWCA, Adirondacks, and Canada occasionally. They are a long way from South Carolina. It looks like on a 2000 mile trip, with 1 MPG estimated savings, I would save $6.50.

From what I have seen on this thread, I guess I will take the money saved from not getting a cover and get a another paddle. I ordered my new canoe with kneeling drops, and now my straight shaft paddles seem a little to long.

 

[Nick Pending]

SK, I'm not gonna buy a cover or change my driving habits for this, either, but I think it could become more important to future canoeists if electric vehicles start to invade the canoeing world. If anyone else runs across more info, I think there are likely people here who'd like to hear it. I would, for sure, even if I'm not gonna use it anytime soon. I'm more inclined to bend any extra bucks more towards a new paddle or something like that myself. Thanks.

 

[tketcham]

I haven't made any comparisons of gas mileage with and without the covers and like you say, it isn't likely to make much difference on short drives anyway. For me it's more about the reduction in noise; a less noisy ride is more enjoyable.

I've noticed that canoe manufacturers are putting their canoes in bags during transport to the retailers. They might have noticed an improvement in mileage hauling a bunch of canoes around the country with the bags.

 

[SouthernKevlar]

I've noticed that canoe manufacturers are putting their canoes in bags during transport to the retailers. They might have noticed an improvement in mileage hauling a bunch of canoes around the country with the bags.

When I got my Northstar last month, it had shipped in a heavy plastic sack, a medium fabric shipping sack and a light mesh sack around the canoe and it arrived in perfect shape on their trailer. It was fun unwrapping the Phoenix at the store, almost like Christmas!
I kept the wrapping materials to reuse or recycle.

 

[yknpdlr]

When Bill Swift personally delivered a canoe to me, he brought it on the largest and longest canoe trailer I have ever seen, Must have been more than 20 canoes on it, each wrapped in its individual fabric bag. I think I was his first stop after coming through the Canadian border, on his way to make deliveries to dealers in the states.

 

[Benson Gray]

My brother drove a truck and trailer loaded with Old Town canoes for a few years and reports that having the canoes covered or open didn't make any noticable difference with his mileage. Snow or slush on the road would drop the mileage significantly and the canoes required much more cleaning upon arrival.

Benson