| On 2005-03-13 17:48:11 -0600, sportinus@yahoo.com said: > <snip>
> what do you use or recommend? Jon boats are pretty stable, all right. But they're not nearly as much
fun as a canoe. You can probably buy one of a composite material that
is light-weight enough for your kids to lift. But let me suggest an
alternative.... An aluminum, 17-ft. Grumman lake canoe (with a keel and a wide, flat
bottom for stability) should meet your needs nicely. You could get a
square-stern model and attach the trolling motor, or just paddle the
thing. The square-stern models may have less flotation. One grown man
can easily pick it up and portage it, but it helps to have two people
to lift it to a cartop carrier. We had one when I grew up, from about the time I was 8 years old. It
could easily accomodate three full-grown adults. Many times there were
four adult-sized teenagers in the canoe, paddling down the Little
Tennessee or across Norris Lake. All of us earned the canoeing merit badge in Scouts, but we spent much
more time paddling with family and friends. Go ahead and buy one...
teach your kids to use it safely, to paddle it quietly and expertly,
and then how to handle it and climb back in safely in case it capsizes.
Two strong teenagers, even without PFD's, can roll the canoe upside
down to empty it, swim underneath, lift one side to break the surface
tension, and then heave it in the air with a powerful scissors kick so
that it lands upright and empty. We held races (in-and-out canoe races) where on signal, the paddlers
jumped overboard, swam to the opposite end, climbed in over the
gunwales, and paddled on... repeating the process about twenty times
over the course of a mile. If your kids are like the guys I grew up with, or like my brothers,
sister, and I, they'll enjoy a canoe much more than a jon boat. That's
still what I use for canoing down rivers in middle Tennessee today.
Although its red paint is faded, it's still as good as when we bought
it fourty-three years ago. Joe
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