Help...i've Become A Canoe Hoarder!

[Al Agnew]

There was no indication, back in 1970, when as a graduating high school senior, I acquired my first canoe. Before that I'd floated Big River since I was 13 years old in a 12 ft. aluminum johnboat. That first canoe was a state of the art Grumman 15 footer from the local Western Auto that my sister's husband ran, so I got it at a discount. I kept that canoe for 15 years, giving it two artistic paint jobs, repairing a hole that it suffered when it was blown off the racks at home onto a sharp rock with 5 minute epoxy (which, as far as I know, is still holding), and finally wearing a bigger hole in the bottom where the back seat was riveted to the bottom, the paper thin remains of the aluminum there finally giving way going over a ledge on the Spring River.

At that point, I figured it was time to buy a new canoe. I visited a long since defunct outdoor shop in St. Charles, where they recommended a Sawyer fiberglass canoe...that was state of the art at THAT time. The Sawyer was a touring canoe, 17 feet long, sleek and narrow and fast, and quite difficult to turn, which, I found, wasn't such a bad thing unless you were trying to use it to run the shut-ins section of the St. Francis.

And then the first intimations of a future hoarding problem appeared. I decided I wanted a solo canoe. So my canoe possessions became a stable ot three, the old Grumman, which I would soon give to my brother in law to use on his pond, the Sawyer and a Royalex Old Town Pack. I loved that Pack...and my wife Mary loved it, too, and saw it as a way for our marriage to survive, since we didn't seem to get along well in a tandem canoe together, like many married couples. Now, I wasn't going to paddle that Sawyer solo while she paddled the Pack...so that meant I needed another solo. As nice as the Pack was, it was a slow canoe that didn't track worth a darn except when Mary was using her favored double bladed paddle, so I wanted a faster, better tracking canoe. My friend Clyde had a dealership for Oscoda canoes, so my third canoe was an Oscoda Coda, fiberglass, a 14 ft. beauty that just glided across the water.

Sometime not long after the arrival of the Coda, my canoe racks gave way going across Hwy. 32 at 60 mph, and the Sawyer slipped off the side of the racks and went bouncing along the side of the highway, still tied front and back to the car. Put a small dent in the car and a huge hole near the front end of the canoe. The damage required major repair, something that's fairly simple with glass, but intensive enough that I hired it done. The repair was good enough, but didn't match the rest of the canoe, so that gave me the "reason" (excuse) to replace the Sawyer. I sold it to a friend who was going to use it only on his private 100 acre lake, something to which it was very well suited, and bought my first Old Town Penobscot 16, a Royalex beauty that is still the best tandem river canoe I've found.

I wore out the bottom of the Pack, repaired it with Kevlar skid plates, and finally wore a hole in the skid plates. Time for a new solo. I ordered a Wenonah Sandpiper, a bit of an upgrade from the Pack, from Piragis Northwoods in northern Minnesota. Piragis offered free shipping, which they could do because their method of shipment was to wait until two or three canoes were sold to people from the same part of the country, and then having one of their employees who had relatives they wanted to visit in that part of the country drive the canoes down and deliver them. The beautiful almond colored Sandpiper arrived in due time, and I loved it a bit more than the Pack. I sold the Pack to somebody on the Riversmallies website.

Sometime along about then, I found an ad for a folding canoe from Pakboats. I decided I had to have it; I could actually fold the thing up and take it on an airplane. I kept it for a number of years, used it a few times, and finally sold it for nearly as much as I gave for it.

The Penobscot bottom wore out, and got fixed with the skid plates. Then I was floating the upper Gasconade with a group of MO Smallmouth Alliance members, and one of them had a new Wenonah Vagabond. I traded him canoes for part of a day, and quickly realized the Vagabond was better than my Sandpiper, roomier, faster, and easier to ferry. I gave the Sandpiper to my brother in law, who was looking for a solo canoe, and ordered an almond Vagabond from Piragis.

I decided to buy a replacement Penobscot, and sold my first one to a friend who thought he wanted to get into canoeing in his retirement. I bought a new one from the Alpine Shop in St. Louis. I used the new one hard, and just a few years later, the bottom of it was getting worn. Meanwhile, the friend with my old one just let it sit in his yard without using it, and finally asked me if I wanted it back. I took it back, so that I'd have a spare tandem canoe for when visitors wanted to float. When it came time to put skid plates on the newer one, I decided I liked the old one a little better--its shape was slightly different and it seems to handle better. So I kept it and sold the newer one.

My friend Clyde had two Oscoda solos that he was wanting to sell, and I decided I needed solo canoes for Mary and myself for our place in Montana, so I bought them both and hauled them out there.

Then one day while we were in Montana, the REI store in Bozeman was having a yard sale of damaged and returned goods, and there was a Penobscot, unmarked except for a big gouge near the front. I got it for far less than retail. Greasy was visiting us, and volunteered to haul it back to MO.

Last summer, I decided the old Vagabond, which had served me very well, was getting pretty worn and I needed a new one. I planned to sell the old one at first, but then opted to keep it as a beater solo for bony creeks in the summer. I ordered a new green one from the Alpine Shop.

Mary and I had long since solved our tandem canoe compatibility problems; you mellow out a bit after 31 years of marriage. And it was good thing, since she has arthritis in her shoulder and couldn't paddle all day with a single blade. We discovered, however, that she could use a double blade with much less discomfort, so we bought her a kayak, an Ocean Kayaks Frenzy, just as paddling kayak for the Yellowstone in Montana. She liked it well enough that we thought we'd get another for Missouri, but then the other day it dawned on me that my old Sandpiper might be a great solo canoe for her using the double blade. So today I took it back from her brother, since he'd hardly used it at all since getting it from us more than a decade ago.

I had racks for four canoes built onto the side of the house...but I now have six canoes in Missouri, and two more in Montana along with the kayak (and a big raft and Water Master personal raft in Montana and a jetboat in Missouri). This afternoon I built another set of racks for the two extra canoes in Missouri.

Please, if I start thinking about buying another canoe...I'll need an intervention.

[fishinwrench]

I feel you, and then some. All but 2 of my boats require outboards, trolling motors, batteries, TRAILERS, plus annual property tax and registration fees.

It has become easier to list the types of "boats" I don't or haven't own(ed).

Never Had: kayak, driftboat, scarab, aircraft carrier .....Everything else has been covered multiple times

[jdmidwest]

17' Grumman canoe, 15' Budwiser plastic canoe, 2) 12' kayaks, 12' Otter fiberglass duck boat and trailer, 14' Monark jon boat, trailer, 9.5 Evinrude, 17' BassTracker with a 35 Mercury and trailer, and a 8' Creek Company pontoon.

I am also looking for a nice, light 10' kayak.

I am boat poor now too.

[5bites]

This needs some kind of flow chart. Probably a colored one.

[Justin Spencer]

Don't get me started on my boat hoarding!

[Wayne SW/MO]

I'll take the fifth.

[ness]

I feel so inadequate.

[grizwilson]

It is not hoarding.... these guys who play golf do not use one club, why should we use one boat, need a set.....

g

[Jeff Tief]

Can't recall if the one time I saw you at Bone Hole if you were in a small plastic boat or a small plastic swimming pool.Course that might have been close to 50 years ago too!

[Njardar]

My fleet is now less than the number of grills I own, one wood kayak, two fiberglass kayaks, one small sailboat and a powerboat.