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Decked Canoe Paddle & Compare?

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It is a shame that Dogbrain and Deerfly’s creations, and others belonging to decked canoe padding CT’ers and friends, are all so geographically distant and widely separated.

Just among Canoe Tripping contributors, Dogbrain in Montana, Kim in Maine, Doug in New Hampshire, GDWelker and others in my home State of Maryland. JoeWildlife in Missouri. Deerfly and others in Florida. Probably left a few out; no doubt there are a bunch of decked canoes hanging around Michigan from Kruger/Sawyer production.

A Bring Your Decked Canoe Paddle and Compare, even a lakeside car camper like the early Raystown Solo Canoe Paddle and Compare, would be an interesting gathering, with opportunity to paddle different decked canoes and get outfitting ideas.

Just throwing an idea out. Not sure of a convenient-to-most State/location, but if it were within an 8 hour drive I’d go and bring at least a couple.
 
I can suggest some venues but for decked canoes to shine they must be in their element.. That can be any element but my favorite rendezvous place Lobster Lake in Maine seems a little tame though it has a rep for being as nasty in its own way as its larger neighbor Chesuncook Lake which can be decked canoe nirvana. But it has fewer beachy campsites. It is more than 8 hours to those who suffer from living in Maryland.:cool:

Seems mr McC that you are more centrally located and Assateague is a place I have not paddled at.

But I think that limiting to decked canoes limits participation.. It would be nice to have a venue that is safe for everyone to swop and play no matter what they bring.
 
Assateague would work well. Protected enough for the first two paddle in campsite routes that a decent open boater could make it, but likely to have enough wind to show the merits of decked boats. Needs to be before the last frost, or you will be feeding the ticks and mosquitoes.
 
A decked canoe paddle and compare gathering was just a wild idea, one that will most likely never happen, although I remain smitten with the idea.

Not at Assateague, for a number of reasons. While Chincoteague Bay would be an ideal testing ground the off-season weather is too unpredictable for group trips with a date selected far in advance.

I have been on some fantastic group trips at Assateague, and some wonderful solo trips. But I have also organized two group trips held on pre-determined dates that simply fell apart due to overly challenging weather, including oppositional 30 mph winds, snow and intense cold. While those trips were certainly most memorable, they were not conducive to doing much comparative paddling.

We did do a group decked canoe paddle and compare multi-day camper behind Assateague back in 2005, with all of the (then) currently manufactured decked canoes, and were blessed with decent weather and enough wind & white capped wave to make comparisons. We got off-season lucky.

In another paddle-in-trip complication I know a couple folks willing to bring two (or more) decked canoes, a scenario where a more Raystown-ish car camper “Leave them all on the beach in front of the campsites to test paddle at will” would be easier.

Provided someone else brought a Monarch I’d bring a couple of our 1970’s European-style decked touring canoe to solo tripper conversions oddities. Probably never going to get another chance to paddle (and sail) a‘71 Old Town Sockeye, a ’77 Hyperform Optima or a ’77 Klepper Kamerade.

heck, I might need a trailer. Soloized, the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] generation Pamlico T145 is the best inexpensive-used, plastic, ruddered, sailing pocket tripper ever made. Laugh all you want, the early P145T is great little decked sailer.

Just standing around a variety of manufactured and home-built decked canoes on the beach, talking construction and outfitting and etc, would be a blast.

But I think that limiting to decked canoes limits participation.. It would be nice to have a venue that is safe for everyone to swop and play no matter what they bring.

I don’t want to be restrictive “You can’t come”, but I do not have the fortitude to recreate a Raystown type event, with a 50-person mass of paddlers, and boats from solos to tandems to sea kayaks to strippers. Those were good times, never to be repeated.

Although. . . . . Raystown Lake in south-central Pennsylvania would offer everything else; a beach in front of the car camper sites at the Senoia loop, fronting a large, wind protected no-wake cove, off a big, open, often windy and choppy lake.

Raystown is close enough to Savage River Canoe; Diller might be coerced to show up with a demo Falcon, Osprey, Loon and decked Wee Lassie. I really want to see and paddle some of those Savage boats.

Not too far from the folks at Jem Watercraft in NC (Northwind), or from Chesapeake Light Craft in Annapolis (Mill Creek, micro-Bootlegger, Wood Duck).

Hmmm, maybe someone has a Wenonah Canak for folks to try. Or one of Swift’s (discontinued) oversized cockpit rec kayaks, a hull begging for a raised seat and rudder. (What was that rec boat, the Adirondack 13.5?)
 
Upper MN, WI, or MI would give you access to Lake Superior under good conditions with lots of inland lakes/rivers if Superior isn't doable.

Alan
 
I think any canoe gathering is a good idea.

Decked canoes is probably too small a universe to get good attendance. Non-decked canoeists should be invited so they can try decked canoes to see if they like them.

My proposal would be more expansive, a rendezvous of OTCAORC's -- other than Canadian-American open recreational canoes. This would include canoes that only a minority of paddlers have: e.g., decked canoes, outrigger canoes (I'd bring mine), pack canoes, racing canoes, endurance-expedition canoes (Texas water safari, Watertribe), war canoes, inflatable canoes, dugout canoes.
 
What is the scenario where a decked canoe is far and away the best option?
 
What is the scenario where a decked canoe is far and away the best option?

For me on big water like Lake Superior and the Atlantic Ocean . I cannot sit right on the bottom and fit in a kayak due to joint replacements. I need to sit a little higher and be able to shift around a bit.
 
I have not followed what constitutes a decked canoe in the context of the canoe tripping community these days. The majority of my decked C-1 exposure/experience is very much whitewater oriented. I paddled an Ultramax with the ends bobbed back in the day, but paddled with a guy who paddled rodeo kayaks and/or steep creek kayaks converted to decked C-1s. He is a world class C-1 guy these days. I have a hard time imagining that he actually asked me to lead down a creek at one time when we were exploring little flash flood runs after thunderstorms after having gone in wearing camo, days ahead to cut out the strainers with bow saws, literally in people suburban backyards. We figured that we managed some first descents if only because the runs were so obscure and so hard to catch with water in them. It probably was stupid dangerous though. I think those were mostly in my kayak days, but Joe would definitely been in a C-1 even if it was a converted kayak (most likely a converted Micro 230).

I also remember friends who did expedition type trips above the arctic circle in Hahns and Berrigans. The guy who organized those trips was a noted physicist (Dr. Hubert Yockey). He paddled open canoe on the local trips I paddled with him. I always wanted to go on one of those northern trips, but never did. I did backpack with him decades ago. With sadness, I read of his passing in 2016 at the age of 99.

This is some of the kind of canoeing Joe is up to these days. He doesn't just run this stuff he is doing stunts and crazy moves all the way down.

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I am more interested in open flatwater canoeing these days, but curious about what other's are doing.
 
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What is the scenario where a decked canoe is far and away the best option?

Decked canoes like the Sea Wind, Monarch, Loon or Sea-1 are often described/termed “Decked expedition canoes”.

I don’t consider what I paddle “expeditions”, although I often pack like it is. But I do enjoy longer trips, and big, open water, including coastal trips.

Big, open water or coastal bay exposure often means high wind and large waves, and that is where a decked canoe really shines.

No question I have comfortably/confidently paddled our decked canoes in wind and wave that would have wisely kept me ashore in an open canoe. With a rudder they also sail wonderfully, even just my chicken crap downwind style.

That said a decked canoe works admirably well on smaller lakes and larger (non-WW) rivers, even day tripping. Two novice paddler, never-before sailor friends on a tidal day trip (Mad River Monarch and Phoenix Vagabond)

IMG021 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

BTW, I was struck with a sudden bout of dyslexia, and initially read the question as “What is the best scenario option when a decked canoe is far away?” and thought you were looking to buy a distant used decked canoe. Might as well answer that.

I’ve driven 16 hours roundtrip for one, from Maryland to South Carolina for another, and had a friend haul one south to me from New Hampshire (thanks Doug, especially since you missed an exit on the way down and ended up in West Virginia)

I do love our decked canoes, even in mild wind and wave.

IMG012 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

BTW, the red boat at the back is a ruddered Wilderness Systems Pamlico 145T (bad word coming) kayak, bought used for beer money and soloized with a raised center seat and a sail thwart. Great, well-rockered pocket tripper, my wife’s favorite decked “canoe”. Poly hull so she knows she can’t much hurt it, and at 14’ 6” X 28” she can easily push the wetted surface when not sailing. Sometimes she even waits up for me.

The yellow-over-white “Sea Wimp” in the middle is a 1971 Old Town Sockeye, 16’ 6” x 30”, similarly soloized and modern ruddered. By far the best decked sailing hull we own.

IMG006 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

There are a number of vintage “European style decked canoes” that convert well into solo decked sailing trippers. Between the ’71 Old Town Sockeye, the ’77 Hyperform Optima and the ’77 Klepper Komerad I may have spent $300 on the hulls, including gas in the truck going to pick them up (mistaken excursions to West Virginia not included).

Just sayin’

I This is some of the kind of canoeing Joe is up to these days. He doesn't just run this stuff he is doing stunts and crazy moves all the way down.

Joe. . . . .Stumpfel?
 
What's the difference between a decked, ruddered canoe and a kayak?

I kind of wonder about how the distinction might blur with some of these boats. In the whitewater world a decked canoe is padded kneeling with a single bladed paddle and a kayak is paddled seated with a double bladed paddle pretty much without exception as far as I know. If we are to talk about racing regulations there would also be some dimensional regulations that would come into play unless the rules have changed over the years. Some of these boats would seem to blur the lines more easily.
 
What's the difference between a decked, ruddered canoe and a kayak?

More open cockpit in the decked canoe, no need to be sized to fit as you do in a kayak and designed for single blading. The seat position is never locked down low. It is higher.

to blur even more; kayaks can be single bladed too with short bent shafts ( and they do exist)

Boat designers have argued over beers for years about the distinction tween yak and canoo.
 
The relevant distinction is not the hull, since the very same hulls can be and historically have been used for both canoeing or kayaking. As the USCA rules have long stated, the relevant distinction is between canoeing, which is defined as propulsion using a single blade paddle, and kayaking, which is defined as propulsion using a double blade paddle.
 
The relevant distinction is not the hull, since the very same hulls can be and historically have been used for both canoeing or kayaking. As the USCA rules have long stated, the relevant distinction is between canoeing, which is defined as propulsion using a single blade paddle, and kayaking, which is defined as propulsion using a double blade paddle.

Not sure about all disciplines, but for decked C1 and K1 slalom at least the hull requirements are different. I had to look up the requirements since they have changed between now and when I was familiar with them. I am pretty sure the following is correct. Please point me at relevant sources if I am wrong.

I thought there were similar distinctions between the two in most or all racing classes of decked C1 vs K1, but am knowledgeable enough to know about them all.

Minimum length is the same for both K1 and C1 at 3.50 m (was 4 m). Minimum width however is different. K1 is .60 meters and C1 is .65 m (was .70 m.). I don't know how long ago they went from .70 to .65 meters (or even when they shortened the boats) but the hulls are closer to the same now than I remember them. Still different though. Of course on decked racing boats the decks will be different to accommodate the different position of the paddlers legs.

All that said. Most of the play boaters and steep creek boaters who paddled decked c1 that I knew paddled converted kayaks because they didn't find suitable hulls available that were specifically designed as c1s. That had it's challenges in deck shape and cockpit rim shape, but it generally was workable. I have not kept up enough to know what the current state of the art is.
 
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As the USCA rules have long stated, the relevant distinction is between canoeing, which is defined as propulsion using a single blade paddle, and kayaking, which is defined as propulsion using a double blade paddle.

Are boats gender-fluid in non race applications?

These are decked, with open cockpits, and often paddled with a double blade. Are they then a Wenonah Wilderness kayak and an Old Town Penobscot kayak?

IMG019 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
 
Are boats gender-fluid in non race applications?
To at least some extent once you get outside of the rules based arena of organized competition it gets to be up to the individual to call it what he or she likes. Certainly there is a lot of gray area in the definitions.

To me the boats in your picture are definitely still canoes. Heck, I wouldn't have even called them decked canoes myself if you hadn't referred to them that way. Maybe open canoes with a spray deck. OTOH, they'd be probably decked enough to be disqualified from being considered "open" in a competition format. I know that I paddled "open" boats on difficult whitewater that were effectively about as decked as that by virtue of being stuffed super tightly with huge flotation bags shaped to fit the boat and with closely laced cords over the top of them effectively creating what almost amounted to a deck. For competition they'd be disqualified too I think. At least I am pretty sure that is what the rules were and I doubt they have changed.

So for example you wind up with the attached picture being what an "open" boat becomes for a lot of whitewater boaters (not my picture, but something like what I paddled at one time). Some are even less like a "normal canoe". This one makes some attempt to look like a traditional canoe, others may not. Some of the BlackFly models don't and I owned a Dagger that didn't

Mike you probably know all of this, but I am explaining more for those who may be interested who don't come from that background and have not been exposed to it.

If this if all too far outside of the tripping area of interest, I apologize to any who are bored by my comments. Let me know if I go too far afield and I'll dial it back :)

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Pete, perhaps “spray decked” would have been more specific.

I know there are folks here who trip on frothy rivers using WW type canoes. And still sometimes leave them behind and walk out (still waiting to hear that tale Ben).
 
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