Thanks! I didn’t have a scale with me, but I’d reckon the Esquif Prospector I handled yesterday was over 65lbs. It has long been accepted (but I’ll admit I’ve never confirmed it) that my friend’s fiberglass 16’ Watson canoe is approximately 65 lbs. This canoe is by far the one that I have the most experience lifting and carrying, and it serves as my frame of reference. I should probably weigh it if I’m going to use it as an “upper limit” or reference of any kind.

Great advice to weigh them… in addition to the “average weight” manufacturers publish, I have heard that some publish the weight before installing trim and/or seats. Many used sellers just quote the spec and not the real weight, which is problematic enough before considering that some seem to be mistaken about what their canoe is constructed with!

I have seen precious few manufacturers weigh and list the actual weight of each boat when leaving the factory floor. Sterling Kayaks for sure does this, and possibly H2O? I wish more would do this.

I would say that 1 and 2 on my list are a tie… weight and lake performance, (specifically how it responds to big wind and waves).

I have a calibrated hanging scale on the shop ceiling and have weighed every boat that has come through the shop for repairs or outfitting. I try to remember to get a “before” weight, but I always get a final weight. Hanging from the scale, balanced on a single strap not only gives me the weight it gives me the exact balance point for a yoke.

P2130015 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Some of the earlier re-build weights are buried in a past tale of refurbishment, never to be found again. I have begun running a white board on the office door with finished weight notations.

P9140031 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Those over-weights are not entirely my repairs and outfitting. Fully outfitted to my druthers adds about 2lbs. Fully painted if necessary, two coats with a sheerline stripe, adds less than 2lbs.

God bless the soloized Northstar, 41lbs fully outfitted. The Royalex reservoir canoes, picked up but twice a year, are 88lbs and 90lbs. Egads, I need help just to get them on and off the truck.

This price and others listed seem fairly reasonable

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-water-sport/bar ... 1671508441

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Old canoeists never die---they just smell that way.

A 17’ Prospector SP3 weighs 99 lbs, or in other terms a 5.18 meter Prospector SP3 weighs 44.9kg :-O

Wow, really?? Makes sense now that I know what SP3 is. My old Tupperware beast(Discovery 158) weighed about 70 or so. On the OT website the 169 is listed as $1500 in Yankee dollars, so not such a great deal, eh?

Sorry, OP, I made my comment in ignorance, but others listed on Kijiji didn't seem too bad.

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Old canoeists never die---they just smell that way.

99lbs is the weight Nova Craft speced for the 17’ SP3. SP3 = poly, and thick poly as well.

A young, strong paddler friend got a pro-deal on the smaller SP3 Prospector, a 15’ model IIRC. He used it until one trip where it was necessary to portage it a couple times up steep hills to avoid un-runnable river obstacles.

It was for sale the next day.

Once again---wow, really? I carried my 158 on a fairly long port on the Petawawa when I was about 60. A few years later, though, when I was about to 'lend' it to a family member, taking to the end of my longish driveway was quite enough.

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Old canoeists never die---they just smell that way.

SP3 17

https://www.novacraft.com/canoes/prospe ... or-17-sp3/

SP3 15 (85lbs for a 14’ 10” canoe)

https://www.novacraft.com/canoes/prospe ... or-15-sp3/

Nicely designed hulls, but the weight is absurd. A Discovery 158 was speced at 80lbs for a foot more in canoe length.

lol funny.

i took an sp3 out as a gift to it (not to me) over much too many ports (and big ports) a few years ago. that boat must have been licking its lips as it bounced on my back, getting that deep into the wild.
in a sense, it had no business out there. it would not have dreamed, in its wildest dreams, of seeing those lakes.
but yet it got there..... it WAS there lol. like a magic trick.
never again.

it was a nova craft pros16 sp3, which weighs in at 90lbs. blue.
not that color matters. but somehow, when a thing's weight is that insane, anything about it seems to be relevant lol.

i guess the memory of it, leaned against some mid-port burly branch, this ringing sound in my ears, throbbing in my neck, sweat flooding over my eyes, is firmly engraved in me. just this blue ghost thing standing blurry in front of me,

but, would i buy another? YES!
and will no doubt buy that other.
why? love the weight (inertia), cheapness, durability, hull shape, in water-only setting.

i like how stubborn it is on the water, it doesn't blink to a sudden blow, wave, etc.
it kind of just yawns, then sleepily agrees to move with a delay. i like that.
rides the big stuff well, like its slow dancing it, calm and collected, smooth. i like that.

so, comparing it to a a nice heavyduty composite, its got 50 extra pounds lol.
those pounds help keep er down in the blow. adding inertia, effectively reducing rocker.,
all just seems to add up to a sweet ride in the rough stuff (solo).

firmly designated as my lake-only boat now.
not as a 'downgrade'... not as a 'eventual falling off the charts' kind of thing. it's proudly my lake-only boat.
mind you, i would NOT be afraid to throw in a few ports. just a few, to get er in and out, maybe 1 or so more, while in there.

and in some crazy/strange way,
carrying that beast into the wild is a special feeling, i can't explain it. its like the discomfort somehow connects you more to the boat as she is.

by the way, the pros16 is really 15.5', so thats 90 lbs for even less boat lol.
the pros15 has a similar story.
(that goes for their sp3 boats, not the others).

Remogami, that may be my favorite “canoe review” ever on CCR. You may remain discomfortingly connected to the SP3 because of permeant dents the yoke left in your Trapezius muscles.

In defense of my “Sold the next day” friend, he worked for an outfitter shop and had a fleet of canoes, all pro-deals. Living semi-paycheck to paycheck that fleet was his bank account. No pay-day loans or cash advances; need money, just sell a boat.

I have two friends who had that pro-deals as part of their ill-paid gigs, neither ever lost money selling a boat.

Heavier than I thought! I guess I should assert my bragging rights here: I portaged it around Crooked Chute, as I said earlier, when I was about 60. Just looking at the map, the full length is listed as about 1.5K. I think we used the first take-out as we were fairly novice WW paddlers. I was in the lead and I inadvertently detoured to the foot of the chute where it was deemed to still be too fast to put in. Then I lugged it back up the hill. Mind you, when we got on the grassy incline down to the put in I pretended it was a toboggan and slid it down the hill.

I passed it on to a SIL who was in his early 40's. He thought it was a bit heavy so passed in on to another SIL.
Wimps,all!

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Old canoeists never die---they just smell that way.

My opinion is worth no more than you pay for it....

If you write off solo and WW for current needs (with small kids you prob'ly don't have much time for ww - so you can rent that boat when needed) then I think it is all much easier. The WW canoe runs contrary to pretty much all your other needs.

What we did, and worked out better than I had any reason to deserve, was phase out our old 16ft with a 17ft and then add a 15ft, for our pair.

A lightweight 17 - 17.5 ft canoe will do well now, the 17 giving you a family canoe good for even a weekend. (Our 17'2" OT Tripper in ABS - now to be sold - was not light but I was younger, and it was the family canoe for a few years. Much lighter than SP3 but 'solid' and seaworthy for all uses.) Then in a couple of years add a 15 - 15.5, which can cover the solo side and tandem for the smaller part of the family. That allows you to choose the boat for the need for a very good number of years. (We added a light Winisk as a portagable tripping canoe, and then a 15 ft Bob Special to cover the smaller size.)
And a 15 is a very useful size. Ours has become the most popular of all the canoes we have owned over the years. Solo and small tandem is a good chunk of useage.

Symmetric designs do allow a bit more flexibility, I think.
I might also caution that some canoes (like Winisk, which I otherwise like a lot) work well loaded but can be twitchy when light. They are not necessarily good day-trippers for a light-weight crew. So consider the load range, especially the asymetric tripping designs, IMHO.

Others, especially those designed for WW, can be pigs on the flat so watch out for the rocker and tracking. Might not seem like much on your test paddle but can become hard work crossing a big lake and on the long flat water stages that will be more of your use. If your kids at 8-12 yrs cannot easily handle that boat on a windy day, it will not be a good experience for them.

Good luck.
Swifts are very nice. H2O has great boats and Jeff knows his designs. I almost bought one a couple of summers ago but had to have my hand fixed so dropped the idea. Other manufacturers also have good boats that might come up when shopping used. That has driven several purchases for me!

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Fitness program designed for men over 40: https://www.fitnessin10formen.com/

Thanks again everyone for helping me think through this! A lot of great advice that I really appreciate. Yesterday I welcomed my first (open topped) boat into my shed, a 2014 Esquif Mistral in Twintex. Here is my rationale:

- It's tough! While many have their misgivings, and rightly so, about Twintex standing up to serious or dedicated whitewater use, it is certainly very abrasion resistant and tougher than most ultralight composite layups or gelcoat-clad exteriors. For me it strikes a good toughness:weight ratio, being significantly lighter than polyethylene, and noticeably lighter than Royalex/T-Formex. Should do well standing up to whatever abuse my kids throw at it for years to come, some Georgian Bay granite landings, and perhaps some light white water use. Obviously Twintex does quite poorly on my "repairable" criteria, but given my broad requirements, this is a tradeoff I was willing to make.

-Versatility! I don't know what the exact differences are between the Mistral and a Prospecter, but it is obvious that it is a close relation. While not being the "best" canoe for any single purpose, it is a good hull design for rough water, rivers, and whatever use we can dream up for it, and is symmetrical so will do equally well paddled backwards from the front seat. At 3.5" bow and stern, it is more rockered than Swift/H2O/Esquif/Novacraft Prospectors, and mildly less rockered than the Souris River Prospector. Seems to identical in all measured and available specs to Esquif's Prospecteur Sport. Only time will tell how much I value more rocker vs better tracking...

-Weight; Weighing in at 60 lbs partially outfitted with air bags and knee pads, it is noticeably lighter than my friend's old Watson (~65 lbs?), and the T-Formex Esquif Prospecteur that I handled (spec'd at 65 lbs, but I suspect it was closer to 70 if not slightly over). Obviously not an ultralight, but I just couldn't stomach the current prices here for used kevlar boats, and am not confident in my requirements enough to drop $4k+ on a new boat from H2O or Swift. This one is easily manageable by myself and I can still dream of one day owning an ultralight.

-Most importantly right now, price; I paid $1k even for it. Perhaps not a screaming deal, but after watching the market closely for a couple of months, I think I did pretty well in terms of $:weight ratio. In that time there were very few =<$1k composite tripping canoes, and none that didn't need any work. A couple of Royalex boats, and a couple of "project boats" that I narrowly missed out on, but the pickings were slim.

The way I see it, if we hate it and have to sell it on, we won't be out much money, if any. Absolute worst case scenario and it melts in a fire or gets torn to ribbons in a rapid, and we're only out about the amount a new Swift or H2O depreciates when you paddle it off the lot. So if we decide after some time that a prospector is not for us, or any other thing we may not be happy with, then I think we will feel a lot better than if we had sprung $2k-$4.5k for one. At this price I'm willing to overlook some of its obvious shortcomings compared to my original requirements (being mid-weight and not ultralight, repairability, the floatation question, etc). When and if we get to our 2nd boat, we should know enough about what we value and can splurge for it if warranted.

As of right now I'm happy with my purchase. You can ask me again how I feel when/if I ever need a repair or after my first long trip....

Some backstory information about Twintex and the Mistral here. YMMV

https://www.myccr.com/phpbbforum/viewto ... 49&t=44256

Thanks Mike. I did my homework on the Mistral and Twintex and know what I’m getting into (based on that thread and a few other horror stories). I think threads like that are part of why it was as “cheap” as it is. I know I’m taking a bit of a chance, but as I mentioned above at the price I paid I won’t be too heartbroken if it disintegrates under me and can’t be repaired.

On the flip side, there are threads like this one in which forum members like Ralph speak highly of Twintex. I DM’d Ralph to find out his opinion 10+ years later and he said he is still as happy with the Mistral as he was then, and if it kicked the bucket he would find another.

Esquif no longer offers repairs on Twintex (they lost the equipment in a fire in 2020 according to Jacques, the owner) but I spoke with the local repair person and he is familiar with Twintex and may be able to repair it, although it would be costly. I’ll cross that bridge when (and if!) I get there.