To the skeptical, how tough wood boats are

[woodman]

I realy get tired of these Missouri boys saying how plastic is this and that....
A few coments that I here...Quote: Hey, no one is a bigger fan of wood than I am...but for canoes on Ozark streams...plastic just be more practical. All of the wood canoes I've seen, I just couldn't bring myself to take a work of art like that out on a creek to scrap it on a shallow shoal.

Now..I would like for those who realy use their boats to post pics of their wear on the hulls...so I can post it back on OzarkAnglers..

This is the challenger I have had it on several Ozark streams and various lakes etc....

[tx river rat]

I will try to take some pics in a couple days.
Ron

[woodman]

Here is a comment frome the CLC forum Quote:Hello All:
I just came back from running 60 miles of the Niobrara River in Northwest Nebraska. Lots of hidden rocks and a number of Class III rapids. As you might imagine the bottom of the boat took a beating. Most of the scratches are just into the varnish but a few of them are all the way to the fiberglass.


Thought it interesting that was the extent of the scaring without graphite
Any way..he had several responses to coat his hull in a graphite mix....

[hairymick01]

Here are a "couple"

the legendary Cadeppa doing what he does best in one of my humble wood boats.





and the result.

a few scratches

[woodman]

Thanks Mick for the pics.....you gotta love these tough boats...

[ezwater]

The surface of a "wood" boat, glassed, can be just as hard as the surface of a "fiberglass" or composite boat. And that "wood" boat will be harder surfaced than a Royalex or Royalite boat. And harder than a "poly" boat.

The next issue is, what happens when you go over a 2 foot ledge, and your stern thumps hard, going over? A "wood" boat can be designed to take most such hits without damage. It just needs to be real stiff and strong underneath.

Same for when the boat gets sideways and the current drives it hard into a rock. A "wood" boat can be made stiff and strong enough not to break. Look at all the douglas fir and sitka spruce logs that make it down Oregon rivers and end up banging on the beach. Stiff and strong.

The downside is weight gain. For a "wood" boat to be stiff and strong enough to take the hits absorbed by Royalex or poly, the "wood" boat is going to weigh more. It may lose its weight advantage over poly and Royalex.

Rounding "wood" boats, making them multi-panel, multi-chine, may stiffen them and also allow them to bend a bit to absorb big hits. Using S-glass outside and Kevlar inside the wood strips or plywood panels can help strength. That may make "wood" boats lose their cost advantage.

But if the only issue is running gravel bars and stony bottoms, it's clear that "wood" boats are as durable, or more so, than Royalex or poly.

[hairymick01]

Mate,

been known to take the odd "dropper' here in my humble wood boats, no problems so far,

Btw, these are bigger than they look

[Kayak Jack]

Waters here in the Great Lakes area have lots of rocks. Rivers wear some of them smooth, and freezing busts a few up every year, to present new and sharper edges. While I don't intentionally seek out rocks to hit, I tend to not avoid them either. Bottoms of my boats look exactly like the ones pictured. I've gone over beaver dams with the boat bridged. The cracking I heard came from sticks in the dam, not the wood in my boat.
Waves, banging the boat up against the face of Mio Dam on the Au Sable River, banged up one side of my canoe a few years ago. Nothing structural, though.