vintage canoe motors?
- Thread starter frogahern
- Start date
davelanthier
Wooden Canoes are in the Blood
Tried a few old, small canoe gas motors but found them heavy, stinky and noisey on a 16' w/c canoe. Now have a 30 lb. thrust electric Minkota which I use now and then. I cut the shaft length down and installed a reostat on a switch to reduce the thrust in half when needed for fishing. Works great and one battery charge lasts for days.
Treewater
Wooden Canoes are in the Blood
motor on canoe
Here's a 1952 Elgin 2 HP air cooled powering a 17ft Old Town HW with sponsons. I'm on my way in and runing the tank dry. When the gas gave out I sailed. Motors are good when you're on a large lake and need to get back to camp miles away and against the
wind.
Here's a 1952 Elgin 2 HP air cooled powering a 17ft Old Town HW with sponsons. I'm on my way in and runing the tank dry. When the gas gave out I sailed. Motors are good when you're on a large lake and need to get back to camp miles away and against the
wind.
Steve Ambrose
Nut in a Canoe
shelldrake
LOVES Wooden Canoes
I bought a used Mercury (3.5 hp I think) for our 16' Canadian Canoe Co. Y stern. It is a 2 stroke and fairly light (27 lb I think). I has way more hp then necessary. It doesn't take much throttle to scoot the canoe right along.
Matt
Matt
Treewater
Wooden Canoes are in the Blood
I agree with Matt. Even that 2 HP was more than adequate. It weighs 28 lb and with care, balance, can be mounted and dismounted from the seat. I'm going to downsize my motor. One caveat, empty canoes with motors on the back are dangerous. Ballast the front or the power and wind combination will send you over. That front end out of the water while into the wind is near impossible to control. Someone suggested coolers filled with water for ballast as better than rocks since rocks will take you down if you capsize while the water in loose topped coolers will empty. Electric motors you can use the battery for ballast by extending the power cords putting the battery under the forward deck. You have more weight with a battery and trolling motor and mine seemed a bit slow on that same 17 ft Old Town. But the electrics are definitely quieter and easier to start/stop. BTW, you can make those mounts out of wood quite easily to fit your canoe.
pklonowski
Unrepentant Canoeist
Ever tried commercially-made "dry bags" as ballast? Fill them mostly with water, leave a little air space, then close them up. While they're in the canoe, they act as ballast, but are a bit gentler on ribs than rocks. If you do go over, they're pretty much neutral in boutancy; with just a little air in them, they float. Just a thought...
Craig Johnson
Lifetime member
I love the dry bag idea. I usually have a 70 lb. dog in the front as ballast but yesterday I went yo a nature preserve that didn't allow dogs and the wind was gusting 30 to 40 mph. I wouldn't normally go paddling on a day like that but I can only get access to this lake one day per month so decided to take the opportunity to to practice solo paddling under those conditions. I took a 10 gal. dry bag and didn't fill it full but it really made a difference in those conditions. One thing I learned was to next time take a bailer to fill it with, it is almost impossible to get enough water in it without wading out into deep water. Thanks for the tip, I'll never go out solo again without one.
Craig
Craig
shelldrake
LOVES Wooden Canoes
Paul is onto something with the dry bag idea I think. I have also thought of the flexible water bladders that are made for marine use. They come in different sizes and shapes and have inlet/outlet fittings. A little pricy though.
Treewater's comments about stability without any weight forward are spot-on. When you consider the weight of the helmsman and the motor, it takes more than just a little weight forward to provide balance and stability....another adult on the bow seat, or considerable weight of another sort.
Matt
Treewater's comments about stability without any weight forward are spot-on. When you consider the weight of the helmsman and the motor, it takes more than just a little weight forward to provide balance and stability....another adult on the bow seat, or considerable weight of another sort.
Matt
