Hey.

I have a buddy that wants to take an Old Town Discover 158 that he recently purchased.

The canoe is in REALLY rough shape, and our trip will be a basecamp type trip on Basswood....BIG WATER.

My concerns center around the sea worthiness of this particular canoe and the idea of using a 15.8 ft canoe on basswood.

WHAT do you guys think.

BTW.......here is a Link to a video of the canoe and my concerns.

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Thanks.

Geo

Geo,

I would not use that canoe. I would either borrow or rent something more seaworthy. Since your only portage is at PP, you could rent an aluminum canoe fairly cheap.

Geo: In the vidio clip  I see no damage , so based on what I see, I would take the canoe to Basswood...if I wanted to.  There are other options though, such as renting or borrowing a canoe for the Basswood trip. My preference for a Basswood base camp would a motor canoe, or better yet a boat with a 25 hp motor  , course if you can't get a motor permit, then guess paddeling is the routine. What type of watercraft are the rest of your crew taking and how many of each ? Depending on what side of the border you plan to fish, a 19, square stern with motor and optional rowing rig(s) might enhance the whoppertunities  
gosh, if I knew you better, i'd offer you the use of one of my rigs....

Well, if it needs fixing - just fix it and take it. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Even putting a pack on the soft spot would improve the integrity in that area.

If it was my canoe and I didn't want to rent a lighter boat, sure I'd take it for a trip with minimal portaging.

I wouldn't worry at all about dents or soft spots ( I didn't see anything in that video that would make me think twice about it) - the Disco is pretty near indestructible.  Its polyethelene - about the toughest material for a canoe - its obviously been dragged over a bunch of rocks which scratched up the bottom, but that doesn't hurt the structural integrity any.  whitewater kayaks are made of the same kind of stuff because it is so tough (and cheaper to make boats out of) and they can just bounce over the rocks.

Outfitter I worked for has a fleet of Disco 169s - they get the snot beat out of them and are still being used after many years - that's used on river trips with lots of rocky landings where fully loaded boats get dragged up on shore, and lots of gravel bars that clients weren't smart enough to avoid - that plastic slides over rocks pretty easily.  They were a decent boat to paddle (I've probably done 300 miles or more in Discos maybe 500?), but a killer to load on the trailers, especially the 15th boat up on the fourth/top rack - only thing I really disliked, other than the weight, is that molded plastic seat.

As far as seaworthy, they go thru class I to II fully loaded - 2 to 3 foot wave trains no problem if the paddlers are decent.  Shouldn't be any issues with basswood - it'll take any conditions you can handle in any 18' kevlar tripper, and probaly do it better since the bow isn;t as sharp and there is a bit of rocker at the ends.  We used 15' Grummans for tirpping for years, and we never had any issues with them being too short, or too slow - its more the paddlers than the boat.

The downside to taking that boat is its not gonna keep up too well with 18' kevlar tripping boats, and its gonna weigh 80 lbls or so, and be a killer on any portage - if your group doesn't mind that, then the boat shouldn't be any problem.

you can check on P-net for boat reviews if you want to bother looking them up.


edit: if you do ever need to make field repairs, you can try epoxy, but it likely won'n t stick too well.  Better to do some plastic welding - using a candle or lighter , melt some plastic, something like an old coffee can lid or plastic container, and let it drip into the cut, and smoothe it out - more like soldering than welding.