17' Paddle Jon

[Greasy B]

 Cool boat, perfect for Gasconade, Niangua and any midsize river. 

[fishinwrench]

1 hour ago, Gavin said:

Thanks Griz! I have been looking for a Lowe or Landau paddle jon for quite awhile.

Me too!  I can't understand why there are so few out there.  Perfect medium sized river craft.

I actually thought about buying an old untitled 1642, taking a sawzall to it and turning it into a paddle Jon.  Seat placement is the issue that kept me from doing it.

[Stein]

3 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

 

I actually thought about buying an old untitled 1642, taking a sawzall to it and turning it into a paddle Jon.  Seat placement is the issue that kept me from doing it.

You should build one of the wooden ones like I did, leave it at the standard 34" bottom width (I widened mine to 40" bottom) and take out one station. That puts it right around 17' OAL.  Actually, shorten to 16'6" and that would let you get the bottom out of only two 8' sheets due to the flare of the transoms.  Seriously the thing would weigh 150 lbs max.  Put seats wherever you want them.  Would paddle great at 34" wide.  A 4 or 5 hp would probably move it along at 6-7 mph with the narrower beam.  Mine does 16 GPS with the 9.9.

[grizwilson]

5 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

Me too!  I can't understand why there are so few out there.  Perfect medium sized river craft.

I actually thought about buying an old untitled 1642, taking a sawzall to it and turning it into a paddle Jon.  Seat placement is the issue that kept me from doing it.

Not sure what they run, Troutt & Sons sells them.....

All boats are custom built to the customer/dealers specifications. Blazer Boats specializes in outboard jet hulls, but also build propeller driven hulls. They build two different flat bottom boats, one is a standard flat bottom and the other is their own original design, the Blazer Sport, which features a long rake. Blazer also builds a boat that has a 5% V Bottom. The Paddle Jon, a long narrow Blazer boat with a rake at each end, hit the market in 2002. Blazer is the original designer of the long rake, the Blazer Sport, often imitated but never duplicated.

[lee G.]

What, exactly, is the long rake, Griz?

[grizwilson]

22 minutes ago, lee G. said:

What, exactly, is the long rake, Griz?

I am not an expert, but a normal flat bottom, the bow (front) angles up (rake) and the stern (rear) is straight and flat.  On the paddle jon it has a rake at each end, the boat floats well in either direction.  It also keeps the stern of the boat from hitting when you float over rock ledge shoals that damage a normal boat. Here is a better picture note the rake (uplift) at each end

[grizwilson]

The story is that Mr. Lowe bought a wooden river boat from the Dablemonts over near Houston MO to use as a pattern for the Lowe version of the boat.  The book Rivers to Run by Larry Dablemont has more information.  All i know is they float and paddle well the aluminum is much lighter than the old wood boats.  But Stein seems to have built a lighter wood that I would love to replicate if I had the talent. 

[lee G.]

OK, the picture you put up tells me. The last one  I built had a 6 inch rake from the mid boat to the front, and a 4 inch from mid boat to the rear. Entirely different. It paddled very well. It would spin 180 degrees with one wide sweep of the paddle.

I guess you could say it was a cross between  a jon boat and drift boat with  that rake.

[Greasy B]

Wasn't too long ago BPS had a paddle Jon in their catalog, if I'm not mistaken they were long, maybe 18ft.  Charlie Campbell help design them. It's good to hear they are still being made, I'd like to have one but I'm afraid the aluminum would make more noise than I could stand. This Shawnee river Jon is heavy and long but can also turn on a dime. 

 

[lee G.]

Yeah, that one has some rake to it.