Old Town Canoe product mix

[Benson Gray]

I've been fooling around again with the Old Town Canoe database described at http://www.wcha.org/ot_records/ to see how their business changed over time. The two charts below show the percentage distributions for wooden canoes among the most popular models as well as canoes, boats, and kayaks made out of wood, fiberglass, and ABS (a.k.a. Royalex). I found it interesting to see how much the popularity of a given model changed from year to year and how quickly plastics took over. This shows how difficult demand forecasting can be.

Benson

 

[pklonowski]

Interesting, albeit sad, data.

 

[Dan Miller]

albeit sad,

Oh, I don't know. After all, of all the great canoe companies, Old Town is the only one that is still in business in 2014.

 

[pklonowski]

Weel, sad because of the decline of their wood/canvas boats... New things are always sexier, I suppose.

 

[Treewater]

Thank you for the effort. It takes time to research and put these things to print. Charts like this tell much about the mood of the culture. We on this North American continent who are not of native stock, Indian, tend to have little regard for the past and embrace new things with glee, if only because they are new. Plastic was a big deal, really great in the sixties. Perhaps you heard the term "space age metal." That meant plastic. (I'm serious) Also the colors it afforded. No more of the dreary brown and dark of wood as my mother said as she bleached a carved oak sideboard near to white. That was 1955.
Embrace new fiberglass canoes....? The salesman simply said " There is NO maintenance on these canoes. You'll never have to repaint or re-canvas." "Sold" said the busy bread earner.
Can I download that chart to be more readable or print?

 

[Benson Gray]

Can I download that chart to be more readable or print?

Yes and you are most welcome. Old Town was late to embrace the 'zero maintence' appeal of plastics which almost ended the company. The transition was most dramatic in wooden motor boats. It was said that this went from a huge business to not being able to give away a wooden boat in just a year or so. It was shown in the catalogs with ten pages of wooden boats in 1966 and only three pages of them in 1967.

I've attached PDF versions of these charts scaled to a tabloid page size (11x17 inches) which should print better. Your comment about colors reminded me that I also wanted to see how the popularity of different canoe and boat colors had changed as shown below. Let me know if you would like anything else. Thanks,

Benson

 

[Treewater]

Again, thanks. I find it interesting that colors changed dramatically with the introduction of the plastic canoe. I'm reminded how plastic dinnerware brought dramatic new colors to the family table. There are avid collectors of those sixties plastic table wares. You can always spot those colors from a distance. Today they may be retro but are tacky. Interesting how our wood canoes are now viewed so favorably. About three years ago an airline inflight magazine featured an Old Town Octa as an example of expensive and classic "toys."
All that is left is a comparison of wood canoes vs aluminum and fiberglass over the years. Aluminum seems to have gone the way of the wood canoe except I don't see many people restoring them.

 

[pklonowski]

I believe Ralph Frese used to fix up aluminum canoes, but I think most folks just melt them down for beer cans.

 

[Rob Stevens]

Great work, Benson. And effective graphics, both at illustrating what you are trying to show, and inducing flashbacks!

 

[Benson Gray]

All that is left is a comparison of wood canoes vs aluminum and fiberglass over the years. Aluminum seems to have gone the way of the wood canoe except I don't see many people restoring them.

I contacted the Marathon Boat Group a few years ago after seeing their page at http://www.marathonboatstore.com/aboutus.asp saying that Grumman canoe sales were “over 33,000 units” in 1974. My hope was that they could provide some additional sales details from Grumman’s first several decades or direct me to another source for this information. Their response was "Sorry but we do not have any information about this nor do we know where to find it. What information on the web page is what we have because we have old employees of the original Grumman Company still working here." There was a huge demand for small boats and canoes in the 1970s after the Arab Oil Embargo but this number seems unusually high.

There was an Aluminum Canoe Heritage Association for a short time many years ago as described at http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?6986&p=37847#post37847 but it was never very active. There is a very well polished and restored aluminum canoe shown at http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/Sails and Plans/Chinese Lugsails copy.jpg with a set of sails from Todd Bradshaw. I suppose we should be encouraged that there are fewer people interested restoring aluminum and plastic canoes than wooden ones.

Benson

 

[Treewater]

That Marathon link is interesting. It leaves unsaid why the demise of aluminum canoes. Again, I presume fiberglass was the reason. The Kevlar canoe certainly makes its mark though a bit expensive it certainly is light...and a bit flimsy. No offense to owners, Just my opinion.

 

[Benson Gray]

That Marathon link is interesting. It leaves unsaid why the demise of aluminum canoes. Again, I presume fiberglass was the reason.

Fiberglass canoes certainly took a lot of business away from aluminum and ABS probably took even more. It appears that the RAM-X Coleman canoe may have ultimately done the most damage to aluminum. The page at http://www.answers.com/topic/old-town-canoe-company says that in the mid-1970s "Old Town was then selling 5,000 canoes a year--a healthy number, but one-quarter of the production of Coleman, which dominated the low-end market." It appears that Old Town now has a variety of plastic canoes filling this market segment. Mark Neuzil and Norm Sims have been working on a book that may cover this topic in more depth. Others may be able to offer a more comprehensive overview of the canoe and small boat market in modern times.

Benson