I am looking at a Lincoln Concord canoe it is 15 years old and kevlar.
It is 16'6", I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this
boat? How does it handle?
I am looking for something to go with either my son or daughter or be
able to manage it myself.
Would be used mostly on slower creeks rivers.
Thanks
Toby

wrote:
I am looking at a Lincoln Concord canoe it is 15 years old and kevlar.
It is 16'6", I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this
boat? How does it handle?
I am looking for something to go with either my son or daughter or be
able to manage it myself.
Would be used mostly on slower creeks rivers.
Thanks
Toby

As a boat, it sounds perfect. The shallow arch bottom will give it good
stability, the symmetric hull means you can paddle it solo or tandem,
the length and beam are good for a fla****er or slower stream
situation. Overall, it sounds like an excellent choice.

However, you need to look closely at the Kevlar hull and the trim. Are
the rails and thwarts wood (ash) or vinyl? If they are vinyl, they are
probably fine, but if they are ash then you should look closely to see
if there is any rot or cracking. Woodwork is easily replaced, but you
should plan on redoing it if it needs it for two reasons: first (and
foremost), to ensure it is safe and will ensure that the boat is stable
and solid. Secondly, for pride of ownership. Nothing like doing a
little maintenance on a boat to make it 'yours'.

Inspect the kevlar closely. If it has a foam-filled kevlar hull, be
sure there are NO cracks into the foam core. Kevlar is not as easy to
repair as fiberglass, and any failure of the hull can be the beginning
of the end. A new boat of this type is about $2000, so if it is being
sold for substantially less, look very closely at it. You don't want
ANY weak spots or cracks.

Let us know how it looks: if there are any spots that look suspicious,
you can post a picture of it and some of the technicians here can give
you feedback.

Good luck;
--riverman

riverman wrote:
wrote:
I am looking at a Lincoln Concord canoe it is 15 years old and kevlar.
It is 16'6", I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this
boat? How does it handle?
I am looking for something to go with either my son or daughter or be
able to manage it myself.
Would be used mostly on slower creeks rivers.
Thanks
Toby

As a boat, it sounds perfect. The shallow arch bottom will give it good
stability, the symmetric hull means you can paddle it solo or tandem,
the length and beam are good for a fla****er or slower stream
situation. Overall, it sounds like an excellent choice.

However, you need to look closely at the Kevlar hull and the trim. Are
the rails and thwarts wood (ash) or vinyl? If they are vinyl, they are
probably fine, but if they are ash then you should look closely to see
if there is any rot or cracking. Woodwork is easily replaced, but you
should plan on redoing it if it needs it for two reasons: first (and
foremost), to ensure it is safe and will ensure that the boat is stable
and solid. Secondly, for pride of ownership. Nothing like doing a
little maintenance on a boat to make it 'yours'.

Inspect the kevlar closely. If it has a foam-filled kevlar hull, be
sure there are NO cracks into the foam core. Kevlar is not as easy to
repair as fiberglass, and any failure of the hull can be the beginning
of the end. A new boat of this type is about $2000, so if it is being
sold for substantially less, look very closely at it. You don't want
ANY weak spots or cracks.

Let us know how it looks: if there are any spots that look suspicious,
you can post a picture of it and some of the technicians here can give
you feedback.

Riverman,
Thanks for answering my post. What do you look for in
an older Kevlar canoe? It has vinyl rails and he states there is slight
damage to the cane seats. I have not gone out to look at it yet.
My understanding is that it was purchased 15 years ago and was used for a
couple of seasons and then stored out of the sun for
the last 12 years. Shold a boat be hung upside down?
It is a older model that was built with a fiberglass core vs. the foam core
they use today and weighs 55 lbs. What is considered light?
He is asking $600 for it. I haven't started looking for a boat for very
long and do not have a feel for the prices. Don't know if I should jump on
it or hold off as I am in upstate NY and winter is just starting.
Thanks in advance,
Toby

Hi Toby:
Don't sweat the seats...cane has a life expectancy and you can replace
them easily and affordably.

Inspect the vinyl rails and thwarts by looking to see if they have any
creases from being wrapped. These are easy to spot: either the lines
will be twisted of kilter, or else there will be that white
discoloration you get when you stress plastic. If there IS deformation,
see if the vinyl is still rigid and strong: most likely the rails and
thwarts will be okay. Also look closely to see that none (or not too
many) of the rivets have popped out. All these things are easily
fixable.

The hull, however, is where the money is. Kevlar hulls have some
serious advantages (lightweight, durable) but also some constraints
(expensive, hard to repair, wear patterns). The following is from
http://tinyurl.com/ylrs9u

"Kevlar is a weaved material, similar to a cloth fabric, and appears
honey-gold in it's raw form. This material weave is soaked in resin,
shaped and cured to create the canoe hull. Kevlar frizzes if it gets
damaged so the hull should have an outside coating made up of a number
of possible materials, including fiberglass (also possible weaved in
with the Kevlar), composites, polyethylene, and resin gel coat. Some
manufacturers are taking Kevlar fibers and weaving them with
fiberglass, which makes for a somewhat heavier but more durable canoe
(but still typically lighter than Royalite and almost 1/2 the weight of
full fiberglass). It is the easiest material to portage being very
light weight. It is also very slippery which in part makes it
extremely ideal for whitewater.

Kevlar in it's pure form is not the most ideal material for a canoe.
Although it is very durable and can take shock very well, severe shock
can crack a hull. Kevlar is very difficult to repair and the repairs
are next to impossible to hide. The gel coat is easily abraded, and
exposed Kevlar will shred out in fine fibers, next to impossible to
repair."

To inspect the hull, first look closely to see if there are any cracks
or 'shatter marks'. These would be from someone hitting a rock really
hard, or possibly someone hitting the canoe with a car while it was
stored. If there are cracks or shatter marks, be sure that the hull
does not flex unusually AT ALL beneath them. Also look to see if the
hull has been abraded: this will look like a fuzzy patch where the
coating is scrubbed off and the kevlar cloth beneath is fraying. Even
without the fraying, see if the surface coating has been worn off in
any areas larger than a dollar bill. If it has any cracks or serious
abrading, I'd bypass this boat and look for an ABS one.

Canoes as a general rule do not have to be hung up: they don't deform
under their own weight, and vinyl rails do not rot from ground contact.
However, in the northern climes they often spend time stored against a
house with a snowbank on top of them (or right side up with a snowbank
inside them) and this can be seriously damaging. I've even seen them
stored neatly inside a barn, protected from the elements, but crammed
full of firewood. Not good. Be sure the bottom of the hull does not
'oilcan', that is; pop in and out like the lid of a Snapple bottle.

Since your boat has spent its lifetime out of the water, the potential
damages will be different than those we usually look for: be sure to
look closely inside and outside the hull for cracks, abrasion,
deformation or discoloration (from gasoline or kerosene spills), or
anything that does not 'look right'.

Even if its in good shape, be aware than you can find an excellent
first- or second-hand ABS boat for $600. Of course, thats a bargain for
a kevlar hull, but just because its a bargain doesn't mean that its the
best value for money. At 55 lbs, its not a huge savings in weight;
Royalex hulls come in at around 60lbs (new style kevlar boats can be
feather-light), and since you are not planning to do extreme
whitewater, hard-core wilderness trips or rocky rivers, the durability
of Kevlar is not a real factor.

Without actually seeing the hull myself, I could not recommend you to
buy it or not. But if its in good shape, then its certainly not a
rip-off.

Good luck ;-)

--riverman

Thanks riverman, I will post when I figure it out...

Am looking at a boat from Dicks Sporting goods...they have it branded
as a Woodsman by Wilderness. Wilderness is part of Confluence
Watersports which owns Dagger and Mad river, looks like it is made by
Mad River it is a Horizon 15 with wood/nylon webed seats. It is a
royalex boat that is 15'2" and weighs 56lbs. Has vinyl rails,
It is on clearance for $450 right
now....http://www.madrivercanoe.com/zoom_bo...zon_15_rx.jpg#
Any experience with one/ royalex?
Thanks
Toby

wrote:
Thanks riverman, I will post when I figure it out...

wrote:
Am looking at a boat from Dicks Sporting goods...they have it branded
as a Woodsman by Wilderness. Wilderness is part of Confluence
Watersports which owns Dagger and Mad river, looks like it is made by
Mad River it is a Horizon 15 with wood/nylon webed seats. It is a
royalex boat that is 15'2" and weighs 56lbs. Has vinyl rails,
It is on clearance for $450 right
now....http://www.madrivercanoe.com/zoom_bo...zon_15_rx.jpg#
Any experience with one/ royalex?
Thanks
Toby

Ready for another treatise? :-)
Short version: ABS is usually very good, Mad River can be quite good,
and the price is maybe too good to be true.

Longer version:
'Royalex' is the trade name for one of Uniroyal's particular layouts of
a sheet made from a foam ABS core sandwiched between two ABS layers,
with a protective vinyl coating over the whole thing. Each boat
manufacturer has their own particular formula for the thickness of the
foam core, the thickness or number of sandwiching layers, and the type
of protective coating, but Uniroyal makes them all. When we refer to an
ABS boat, Royalex (or Royalite, a thinner, lighter layup) is what we
are usually referring to.

ABS is a very common boat hull material, and spans the range of
qualities of boats. There are some rather cheap boats made of ABS, some
good midrange ones, and some top of the line ones. The difference in
boat quality is primarily factor of quality of the ABS. Some boats,
like Coleman, use a very thin layup of ABS to save weight, and aluminum
tubes to help it keep its shape. This is bad. Older ABS, such as that
used in Blue Hole canoes, was laid up quite thick to give it rigidity,
producing a solid, but heavy, boat. This is currently considered bad,
but once upon a time it was state-of-the-art. Most modern boat
manufacturers, such as Mad River, Old Town, Whitesell, Dagger and
Lincoln, use a layup that is thick enough to be rigid, but not so thick
as to be heavy. Manufacturers are figuring it all out and are getting
good at getting strength without too much weight.

As a hull material, it has tremendous advantages: very durable,
flexible (will pop back into shape if you bend your boat around a
rock), quite impervious to the elements (unless you scrape off the
plastic coating, upon which UV rays will dramatically weaken the ABS),
forgiving (over time or with a little heat applied from a hair dryer,
creases and wrinkles will disappear), and slippery on the rocks
(depending on the covering material). Your grandkids could well inherit
your new ABS boat.

It does have some disadvantages: an ABS boat can be pretty heavy, they
are hell to repair, and once they DO wear off the plastic coating, they
will silently get weaker and weaker from the UV rays. I have an ABS
Blue Hole from the 1970s that is almost unusable from UV rot. On the
other hand, I have gotten several hundred thousand miles out of it and
bought it looking like a pretzel...

So in general, I think ABS is an excellent choice of material for a
beginner. Its as close as you can get to a 'wash and wear' boat; you
can leave it out all winter, it requires almost no care, and can
withstand a lot of abuse.

Now, about the hull: Mad River used to be one of the premiere boat
manufacturers in the world....I believe their owner, Jim Henry, was the
first to make canoes out of ABS. About 7 years ago he sold his company
to Confluence Watersports, and their manufacturing operation moved to
North Carolina. Unfortunately, many of his workers did not want to
relocate from Vermont, so the manufacturing skill and experience did
not move with the company. For the first few years, the quality of MR
boats deteriorated significantly, and eventually Confluence moved
operations to South Carolina, retooled and retrained, and started
improving their turnouts. From what I hear, they have gotten back to
making pretty good boats, but their hulls aren't yet up to the standard
of older 'New Hampshire' hulls. They tend to be a bit heavy, and often
have weak spots and cosmetic blems.

That being said, they still have a good reputation. I own two MRs, but
they are Vermont hulls. I have seen several NC and SC hulls that were
not so great, so look closely for 'blems' in the boat. These will be
any of the following:

- open blisters that look like little pockmarks or craters. They can be
as small as a pencil lead, or as large as a quarter. Don't accept ANY,
as they are places where the ABS core is exposed to the UV rays.
Sometimes they come in clusters, other times they come singly.
-swirly patterns in the plastic covering. These represent different
densities of the plastic, and over time the covering can delaminate at
these places.
-big airbubble blisters. These can be as big as your hand, or even
larger. These aren't fatal, however they are unsightly and show weak
spots in the layup.
-oilcanning (flexing of the bottom of the boat). This is indicitive of
a thin layup, and means the boat is not as rigid as it should be, and
will be a bit harder to handle in current.

Now for the boat itself. What you told us is a bit concerning. By
'Wilderness', I assume you mean "Wilderness Systems", which is owned by
CW. Problem is, Wilderness Systems boats are kayaks and SOTs (sit on
tops)....they don't make canoes (as far as I know). If CW is taking one
of their MR Horizons (which is a fine boat) and relabeling it as a WS
'Woodsman', you need to find out why. It might be a new marketing deal,
or their might be a bad hull that they don't want to put the 'MR' name
on, or you might have some of your facts mixed up. I don't know of any
"Wilderness Woodsman" boat.

But if its a MR Horizon 16' for $450, they are selling it for less than
half its market price. Check it out VERY carefully....it might be an
excellent find, or it might be a lemon in disguise. Personally, I'd be
a bit wary.

Anyone else got input?

--riverman

riverman wrote:
wrote:
Am looking at a boat from Dicks Sporting goods...they have it branded
as a Woodsman by Wilderness. Wilderness is part of Confluence
Watersports which owns Dagger and Mad river, looks like it is made by
Mad River it is a Horizon 15 with wood/nylon webed seats. It is a
royalex boat that is 15'2" and weighs 56lbs. Has vinyl rails,
It is on clearance for $450 right
now....http://www.madrivercanoe.com/zoom_bo...zon_15_rx.jpg#
Any experience with one/ royalex?
Thanks
Toby


Now for the boat itself. What you told us is a bit concerning. By
'Wilderness', I assume you mean "Wilderness Systems", which is owned by
CW. Problem is, Wilderness Systems boats are kayaks and SOTs (sit on
tops)....they don't make canoes (as far as I know). If CW is taking one
of their MR Horizons (which is a fine boat) and relabeling it as a WS
'Woodsman', you need to find out why. It might be a new marketing deal,
or their might be a bad hull that they don't want to put the 'MR' name
on, or you might have some of your facts mixed up. I don't know of any
"Wilderness Woodsman" boat.

But if its a MR Horizon 16' for $450, they are selling it for less than
half its market price. Check it out VERY carefully....it might be an
excellent find, or it might be a lemon in disguise. Personally, I'd be
a bit wary.

Anyone else got input?

--riverman


I found some posts on paddling.net about this particular canoe, from
what I've read the older ones were made by Bell but the newer ones are
made by MR. HTH

Here's the thread, it's from last summer:

http://www.paddling.net/message/showThread.html?fid=advice&tid=501503

Here's a few of the posts:

Answer - Mad River Horizon 15
Posted by: blk on Jun-30-06 8:47 PM (EST)
Dicks Sporting Goods is having an Outdoor Expo in the parking lot
outside their big store in Robinson Township, PA today.

I saw a Woodsman sitting right next to a Mad River Canoe. I saw
identical seat drops, very similar deck plates - with a round circle
stamped ito the plastic in the same size and position where Mad River
puts their rabbit. Checked the HINs, both had the same MICs - WEM -
Confluence Water sports.

Spoke the the Mad River Rep. - Who building these boats for Dicks?
Answer: We do.

BLK


horizon 15
Posted by: Ben7 on Jul-01-06 11:54 PM (EST)
Yeah,
After more checking on the specs I believe that this is a Horizon 15. I
emailed the company to try to get verification, but they didn't
respond. Whoever made it it is a nice canoe at a good price. Also the
"woodsman" lettering peals off very easily. Just get yourself a decal
of a rabbit smoking a pipe and no one will know the difference : ).


woodsman canoe
Posted by: ml1804 on Jul-01-06 8:29 PM (EST)
I've had the same questions about this canoe.

I'm considering purchasing the same canoe myself. After several visits
to the store, and several phone calls to Dicks, here is what I have
found. My first visit, the salesperson had no idea who made the canoe.
When I called on the phone, they told me it was built by wilderness
designs. I called back to verify, and another salesperson told me that
the manufacturer was definately Bell.

They don't have it in stock, and they won't order one until I give them
a 50% deposit. I'm still confused. I'm not sure if this helps.

Amongst a very learned treatise on canoe materials, riverman wrote:
Some boats,
like Coleman, use a very thin layup of ABS to save weight, and aluminum
tubes to help it keep its shape. This is bad.

Colemans are/were made of RAM-X polyethylene, not ABS, which is a
different material altogether. The second sentence is correct.

Steve

Steve Cramer wrote:
Amongst a very learned treatise on canoe materials, riverman wrote:
Some boats,
like Coleman, use a very thin layup of ABS to save weight, and aluminum
tubes to help it keep its shape. This is bad.

Colemans are/were made of RAM-X polyethylene, not ABS, which is a
different material altogether. The second sentence is correct.

Steve

You are correct, sir; Colemans are not ABS. I should have saved Coleman
for the treatise on Poly boats. There is also the entire constraint of
which materials are naturally buoyant or not, as well as which ones can
be molded with sharper angles, and also which ones offer the best
puncture resistance.

Meanwhile, what do you guys think of this whole Horizon/Woodsman deal?
It sounds like MR is looking to dump a bunch of Horizon-16s on the
market under the radar. Anyone got any industry contacts to find out
what's up? Sounds to me like CW generated a bunch of hulls that had a
high percentage of blems, so they dumped the whole lot on the market
under a false brand to avoid tarnishing the MR repuation. Maybe they
learned from their Explorer growing pains.


--riverman

riverman wrote:
Steve Cramer wrote:
Amongst a very learned treatise on canoe materials, riverman wrote:
Some boats,
like Coleman, use a very thin layup of ABS to save weight, and aluminum
tubes to help it keep its shape. This is bad.

Colemans are/were made of RAM-X polyethylene, not ABS, which is a
different material altogether. The second sentence is correct.

Steve

You are correct, sir; Colemans are not ABS. I should have saved Coleman
for the treatise on Poly boats. There is also the entire constraint of
which materials are naturally buoyant or not, as well as which ones can
be molded with sharper angles, and also which ones offer the best
puncture resistance.

Meanwhile, what do you guys think of this whole Horizon/Woodsman deal?
It sounds like MR is looking to dump a bunch of Horizon-16s on the
market under the radar. Anyone got any industry contacts to find out
what's up? Sounds to me like CW generated a bunch of hulls that had a
high percentage of blems, so they dumped the whole lot on the market
under a false brand to avoid tarnishing the MR repuation. Maybe they
learned from their Explorer growing pains.


--riverman

I think I am going to go and look one over thoughly...If it looks good
I am going to pick one up...
Will let you know what I find.