A little Old town canoe education

[Brett Engel]

Folks- hoping someone can sort me out with hull shapes. I just picked up a 1975 17' Chipewyan tripper- can we confirm this is the same shallow arch design employed on the more current tripper models? I am asking because if it is indeed a shallow arch, it its pretty subtle and looks mostly flat. I also own a Penobscot 17 whose arch appears far more aggressive in comparison. Perhaps the appearance is due to less beam on the Penobscot? As an aside, is the camper the rebranded version of the 16ft chipewyan? Is this gal designed as a true flat bottom boat? Thanks!

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

"Chipewyan" was basically the name for the entire line of Royalex Old Towns in 1975 - Chipewyan Pack 12', Chip.14, Chip Mini Tripper (15' deep hull) Chip.16 (later became the Camper) the 17'2" Tripper and the Chip 18). Calling a Tripper a shallow arch bottom is pretty funny, since the bottoms were so floppy that they often hogged. On more than one occasion as a dealer I complained about that to old Town's management, as a floppy bottom makes for a really poor paddling canoe in smooth water. I was told that some folks liked to stick a sheet of plywood in the bottom to keep it down. My reply was that one 74 lb. canoe and one 20 lb. sheet of plywood makes one 94 lb. canoe. The Penobscot came out later and was an attempt to build a Royalex canoe that actually paddled well, and by comparison, it did. Despite its limitations, the Tripper sold well, mostly due to its capacity and high sides for use in rough water. Its "Achilles heel" would tend to be the bulges at the bottom of the stems, which you can see if you roll the boat over. They tend to concentrate much of the abrasion the boat gets in use on a couple small areas, and it is not unusual to see old Trippers which have worn through the outer layers and into the foam core in those spots. If there is any good side to this, it is that it is predominantly what inspired the invention of the Kevlar Felt Skid Plate kits to armor plate those spots.

Eventually, the larger boats in the line got aluminum inserts inside the gunwales to strengthen them and the white ABS seats and deck end caps were replaced with foam filled polyethylene roto-molded seats and polyethylene end caps. As far as I know, the hull shapes themselves never changed.

 

[Benson Gray]

The page below from the 2004 catalog may help. It explains these terms with text and some pictures. Note the comment at the end of the bottom section where it says "Keep in mind that many canoes will incorporate one, two, or all three of these in different areas of the hull."

Benson

 

[Brett Engel]

thanks all! you know what's funny about the 'floppy commentary'... the first thing I noticed about this boat when I got it was how much it would deflect under pressure while was cleaning the hull!!! in comparison, my penobscot is more rigid and offers far more resistance- I was half concerned it was a sign that the material was 'getting soft'. I do love my penobscot but recognize its weakness to be initial stability. I wanted the tripper thinking my family would find the wider beam to be a more comfortable ride. Sounds like the hull is conceptually 'shallow arched' (tho I am not 100% clear) , but may not have been well executed Are the more current trippers any different or do they also tend to have lots of give to the hull?

 

[Michael Grace]

This may be a little off topic for this thread. Your choice of canoe model is yours, of course, but just for fun... for well over a century Old Town (and many other makers) also produced canoes built of WOOD. It's a wonderful material, and they encompass a wide variety of hull shapes and paddling qualities. Look around on this site and you'll find a few examples. They're pretty cool. Just sayin...

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

As my late great buddy Harry Roberts once said, "There is a certain amount of magic in any canoe, but a wooden canoe is all magic." Be that as it may and possessing only limited magic, I think the shape and breadth of the Tripper's Royalex hull pretty much pushed the material's limits, and a bottom that held its shape well simply was never in the cards. They aren't made any more and the closest thing in the line is now the 3-layer rotomolded polyethylene Discovery 169 (16' 9"LOA, two layers of solid polyethylene with a foamed polyethylene layer between them to add at least some rigidity. It's hull shape, rocker and depth were inspired by the Tripper. Honestly, it has been so long since I've been in one that I can't remember if the bottom bounce problem was better or not.

 

[shelldrake]

I bought an 18' Chipewyan Guide in 1973. Still have it. Lots of mileage on that old boat and good memories despite the floppy bottom.

 

[Benson Gray]

It should also be noted that both the 17 and 18 foot long Chipewyan canoes were designed for long trips. Most of the bounce or floppy issue is eliminated by loading a large amount of heavy gear into the bottom of these canoes.

Benson

 

[MGC]

Todd's buddy Harry got it right. I have paddled literally thousands of miles in wooden canoes. We have quite a few of them. They are all very special and except one, used as they should be. I have dropped them on carries, broken ribs, twisted stems, cracked planking, gouged canvas in them in all variety of ways.
Rollin laughed when my son was agonizing over some damage we did to his Traveller. Our alternative interpretation of "draw hard right" dinged it up a bit.
Rollin's comment was "it's meant to be used; it makes me happy to see them get used". Just this weekend I looked at a couple retired Darrow Camp canoes...an Old Town and a deep Prospector. These boats had literally been to Hudson's Bay, and they are gnarly.
That said, there are occasions when our rubber boats are used. If we are running big spring haystacks or rock gardens, the rubber boat is my second choice. If you think it's going to go over and get shoved around a boulder or jammed into the shoreline, Royalex is a great way to go. If I'm going deer or bird hunting, rubber. Who wants to fill a wooden canoe with swamp muck and blood?
I never liked the Tripper because of its sloppy handling, but if you are looking for a hull that you can put a motor on and literally load an outhouse in, that's your boat (look at the attached image). The Maine Forest Service was traumatized when Old Town stopped building them. They stockpiled all they could buy in a barn.
When the Penobscot came along, I bought one. It has many hundreds of hard miles on it and unlike the Trippers, it's a decent canoe to paddle. It does pucker a bit in big waves or if we are surfing it in the ocean but it's not as bad as a Tripper.
Our sons each have Campers. The 16-footer hulls tend to be less spongy. The relatively flat bottoms make them a safe canoe for beginners and if you are a fisherman, they are easy to stand in while you cast. My son regularly fly fishes in the gravelly Teton river with his.
As I mentioned, these are my second choice.
A question I always asked whenever I taught canoeing is "what is the best canoe to use for running rapids?" No one ever provided the correct answer.
The answer is one that belongs to someone else.