I have tried every other type of canoe in white water and will stick to Grumman because it always comes home with me. There are holes where I used epoxy and even duct tape in places where temporary emergency repairs were made and have become more or less permanent. It has uncountable dents and some cracks which have been easy to repair using aluminum auto body repair tape. The one I have is nicknamed "The Rock Cracker" as it has seen extensive white water use and has the damage to prove it. Both were built in the late 40's and both are still going. One I purchased from the Boy Scouts when they wanted to get new boats and the other I purchased third hand from a man who inherited it from his grandfather. I still have one and my youngest son has the other. I have owned two Grumman canoes, both 17 footers.
(I compare kayaks to sport cars and my Grumman to a station wagon.) I'm about to pass along this boat to another generation as it will last far longer than I will. Now in my 70s, the boat is becoming heavier than I care to haul and I now use kayaks for my paddling. My partner and I had some thrilling moments standing nearly straight up on the gunnels to balance the boat as we soared across the Potomac near Mt. I outfitted the boat with a sail kit which I modified to make the cumbersome sideboards work automatically.
Ten minutes later the nearly submerged Grumman floated past and we retrieved it and all our gear. We spent several terrifying moments under water before popping up downstream. A partner and I attempted Little Falls (against my better judgement) and we quickly swamped. We never tipped over, we just sank! Unfortunately we hit a rock and put a 5-inch split in the hull. During one trip down the Potomac south of Great Falls the canoe was swamped plowing through giant rooster tails.
In the late '80s I used it to shuttle in two trips my wife, three young kids, our dog and all our gear to an island campsite on Lake George. It's keel helps it track, but it's too heavy for serious racing. I got the aircraft-gauge aluminum Grumman from by brother in the early '72s and have used it primarily on the Potomac and rivers in N.J., Delaware and West Virginia, both white a flat water. They were works of art, but only good for flat water and a headache to maintain. I've had many adventures in my 17-foot standard Grumman canoe built by Marathon, including a near fatality (my fault, not the canoe's). It had five years of Ontario Provincial Park permits on its bow and hundreds and hundreds of miles of what are now National Scenic Waterways rivers under its belt. Someone shot a lot of holes through it with a high powered airgun or a shotgun and my mother gave it away, probably to the jerk that shot it up. It died an ignoble death in my mother's back yard in 1992. I think my brother ran it down the Deschutes. The Grumman was transportation and sometimes even shelter. We would put in on Basswood lake and spend three weeks in the woods of northern Minnesota and southern Ontario. Several years later I rated the bow seat and eventually my brother and I had our own canoe.
My first trip was at age eight where I went as a passenger. We also put it on the roof of our 1964 Ford station wagon along side an identical twin borrowed from friends and took it to the Boundary Waters in southern Ontario. My parents bought it in the early 60's and used it extensively for trips on many rivers in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas ( Jack's Fork, Current, North Fork of the White, Buffalo, Gasconade, Courtois, even the Mulberry.
0 kommentar(er)
