View topic - Best canoe deal ever?!!

I bid on a canoe on ebay, and lost, but now I was contacted by the seller on my email, for an offer off ebay. The deal sounds sooo good!! I pay only after I inspect the canoe, when they deliver it to me, so Im not risking getting ripped off during the transaction.

Here are the specs:
1) Kevlar Prospector 16'6", 46lbs
2) 38" wide
3) 1" rocker
4) 1 keel
5)1025$

Is this too good to be true? Am I missing something? If not, anyone want to buy it off me for 1400$ ( )

A particular scam on eBay targeted losing bidders with offers of second chance purchases. However, as eBay now blocks the email addresses of all bidders there's less of a chance of that, but it's not impossible. Also, eBay is a haven for selling stolen items, and as this was NOT listed it would be best to try check with law enforcement using the unique ID number that all boats have (at least I THINK they have those numbers in Canada)

As long as you can have possession of the canoe before you pay, then it seems pretty safe.

Chuck

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Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity of it terrifying and absolutely vile. Kurt Vonnegut

Keep in mind how you want to use the canoe. Prospectors are great canoes and can haul a lot of gear but they can be tug boats (slow going) on lakes or paddling into the wind. Great on rivers and possible WW but it's kevlar! It sounds like a great deal and Chuck does make a good point.

Barry

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It's all about forward progression!


"Preservation of our waterways comes from those with little voices, big paddles, strong backs, weak minds and thick hides with which to ignore the bug bites." Organizer of "The Wabakimi Project"

Brand?

New? Used?

A personal sale or a company?



Barbara

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I'm out of bed and I made it to the keyboard....what more do you want?

I get giddy when I have an email telling me there are replies to this thread.

The canoe is factory made in Ontario somewhere (think its Hamilton), and they are stopping, on the way to Sherbrooke, by Montreal. So if I dont like it, or dont want to buy it, they continue on their merry route to a store, where they drop it off.

This is not a second chance offer, but a "on the side" kinda deal.
Here is the link to the bidding that I lost. I'm feeling like I found the deal of the century, and some of youz might want to join in.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... Y.m238.lVI

Btw.. what do I want for my lake trips if not a prospector?

Looks like it might be from Beach Marine, then?

There's been some recent discussion around here about this company.



Barbara

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I'm out of bed and I made it to the keyboard....what more do you want?

And THAT is not following the lines of a Prospector! Be very careful and do not get sucked in by someone taking advantage of a name.

You have the shape of a bathtub. 38 Inches is wide; two inches too wide. Granted the boat is 16'6", six inches longer than the Prospector Fort.

One inch of rocker sounds more like the lines of a Wenonah. Prospectors had more like two and a half inches bow and stern.

Keel? One inch of rocker?.Prepare to gladiate. You will need your muscles to turn this one.

Prospectors are river runners and secondarily lake boats. This one sounds like a fat slow lake runner that goes from A to B.

All Kevlar boats are not equal. Pay attention to where extra layers are applied and to the way the canoe is stiffened. You can have a really bad layup and extra resin, so the weight doesnt really tell all.

I would be happier for you if this boat had shown up when you can test paddle it.

Sorry to dump on your parade.

Im crying inside, but the truth hurts sometimes.

If you scroll to the end of the auction you'll see a whole speech about the authenticity of the prospector design. I can choose my width, so I can have it 2 inches less on the width, a shorter canoe if I wish. As for the keel, its either 1 or 3.
Remember this canoe is coming to 1200$ tax ,and mods included.

The way it tracks on a lake is incredibly important to me. The worse would be if it was slow on flat water.

Whats that Beach Marine comment there? Whats the word on these guys?

Whereabouts are you... in the Algonquin area, there are used kevlar canoes priced under $1000 and you'll be able to test-paddle once the ice is out. The Portage Store and Muskoka Outfitters have price lists online, while Algonquin Outfitters provide a phone #. Some of these might need repair work if you can do it yourself, otherwise a boat shop could do that.

Here's a used kevlar under $1000, might be worth a look.

http://toronto.craigslist.ca/oak/boa/491393724.html

PS... a longer canoe will probably provide better tracking than a keel on a shorter canoe will... the Bluewater Freedom 17 is a good flatwater design, built for speed, but will cost more than a thousand. The quality of construction will most likely be better than with a cheaper canoe, and the higher quality makes it the better buy in the long run.

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Beach Cove Marina might be selling decent canoes at a fair price, but their sales pitch makes me wary. They present their boats as state of the art & top of the line. They're not. That's ok, they don't have to be. What they have and what they say should jibe and it doesn't.

"THE ONLY KEVLAR CANOE ON THE MARKET WITH 3 KEELS FOR SUPERIOR TRACKING AND STABILITY. "

Im in Montreal, but I study in Europe. I'll be home for the holidays in 2wks for a month, so no testing. Unless you know someone or something I can do in Montreal.

I dont want to buy a used canoe, I was happy with this one cuz it was new. Should I ask if they have a canoe with greater rocker, and shorter?
Yeah the 3 keel line gave me the same feeling, very used car salesman.

What do I do? You think I can buy this canoe, and sell it if I dont like it. I need a bigger canoe, as my 14 footer is getting tight, ask my dog and the man upfront.

Why not used? Just curious. Another option is to check out rental shops. They often sell off their rental/demo stock at this time. That's my plan.

I had an old fibreglas with 3 "keels". I put keels in quotes because two of the 3 are really stiffeners to make up for poor materials or construction. "ole yeller" served me well as a beginner's canoe, but I had to practice the 3 Ps anytime I needed to turn: Pull, pry and pray!
For that money better buy a used one by a better manuf.

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

I'll add my two cents:

Looking at the photos, it looks like they are using a fiberglass/Kevlar layup, not straight Kevlar. That's why they it's so heavy compared to most name brand 16 1/2 ' canoes (they usually come in under 40 pounds). The fiberglass in the one under construction is not even cloth but is obviously cheapo chopped strand matting, nowhere near as strong.The keel(s) are in there for bottom reinforcement, not tracking ability or stability (keels do nothing to make a boat stable, but can make it very unstable if you run it up onto a rock) as they claim. Also, the layup in the photo looks pretty sloppy to me.

Still, the lines on most of the boats look good to me and are clearly from classic Canadian canoe designs. 1" of rocker isn't really any IMO. You need at least 2-3" in order for the canoe to turn easily when it is sitting flat (heeled over it should spin OK). They offer the boat in narrower widths. 35-36" is standard for most Prospectors. Appears that they are mixing and matching design elements without an overall application concept to guide them.

So I'll have to agree with LRC on this one, except I believe she is wrong about the Wenonah Prospector. My 2006 catalog specifies 4" front and back and 37" max beam (unless they've re-designed it).

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“We can have great disparities of wealth or we can have democracy. But we cannot have both.” - Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

They (Wenonah ) did. The stems are pinched in from the original Chestnut design. I think they were after the Mason Prospector which was a tweak from the original design. Prospector has historically been meddled with for a looong time.

The repro of the 1950 Chestnut catalog does not list rocker. However that is a misleading measurement. Its never been standardized. Where do you measure it from? (ignore; hijack)

I got to talk to Dave Yost who designed the Bell Prospector.
The Bell was much unlike the Wenonah (we had em side by side at Paddlefest). He said the Bell was closer to the original.

Whatever that is.