Folks,

I'm looking to add water travel to my skill set and am trying to decide between using a canoe or a kayak. This would be for flatwater trips (lakes and placid rivers/streams) including overnight camping.

My uninformed opinion is that canoes might be easier to learn and handle and might carry a bigger load. Kayaks seem like they might be more efficient (energy to propel across the water) but more difficult to master and require more specialized gear.

But I'm looking for your wisdom and experience. I'm an average 61 yro guy with no particular physical constraints and in walking/hiking reasonable shape (not doing triathalons).

Would be doing solo travel but would sometimes be taking my 22 lb Jack Russel with me. Expense is always a component of my decision process but from my early research not an impediment.

Whatcha y'all suggest?

Thanks in advance for your informed from experience advice.

Andy

You will perhaps find some people on this forum who are proponents of canoe travel so I will talk a bit about kayaking. My experience has been almost exclusively sea kayaking in traditional craft, sometimes in fairly rough conditions, where they work quite well. A little bit of practice will make you competent to handle most normal conditions.

You can easily pack enough gear for extended trips. A properly packed, fully loaded kayak is actually more stable than an unloaded craft. I simply put my normal backpacking gear in watertight bags and have at it. The available load capacity of a kayak is much more than I would ever want to backpack, so I have thrown in some luxuries when kayaking that I would never carry on my back. I believe canoes have even more capacity, so if you can handle the portages, you can probably bring along the good silver and china to go with the vintage wines.

Today you have a spectrum of slender, pointy-at-both-ends watercraft ranging from traditional kayaks to sit upon kayaks to decked canoes to traditional canoes, so you can pick whatever suits your needs best.

Both craft require caution and prudence when the weather kicks up. Conditions on inland lakes can be just as bad, or worse, as the open sea. Time to make camp and console yourself with that vintage wine.

Andy..i,m one of the canoe guys guys hike was hinting at.
for some thirty years i've been going up into the wilderness parks in Minnesota and Ontario for two week solo trips or with buddys or my Wife at times so i have a good idea of what you need.
a Canoe!



Yaks like the one Hike takes out are fine but they were made for spearing seals while the canoe was made for wilderness travel with a load and when you run out of water they are made to be flipped up on your shoulders and portaged to the next lake



because it's made to carry a load you can take along what you feel you need to have a safe and comfortable trip.some trippers go out in small canoe with the sort of light weight gear a hiker would take.i take something more than that.i find that two 45 pound packs are just right for me.that means i carry three load over the portage but i take my time as i'm not really going anyplace but just out to enjoy traveling around the lakes.



two weeks worth of gear,tent-clothes-fishing rods-so on.



and two weeks worth of food.canoe trippers eat well with bannock,pancakes,stews..real food-



and one more photo for canoe propaganda..after days of not seeing anyone and find yourself at the end of a portage into a wilderness lake you will be happy in your choice of a "open boat"

CD, I am curious - in reasonably typical canoe waters, say the BWCA, how often do windy conditions and rough seas confound your journey? This can be a real issue down here along the SoCal coast. I tend to think that a lot of the lakes in your area are relatively small or at least have accessible lee shores, so that you can still travel when the wind kicks up. True or not?

Hike..i have to take off for a bit but before i go here a a couple photos..the thing that makes canoe country work so well for tripping is just what you hinted at.the lakes are "small" or filled with islands and bays so being wind bound is rare.a canoe like mine,a 16 foot Prospector,can go out into anything just short of whitecaps and still feel safe.jumping windy narrows to the lee of the next point or island is all part of the game up there.and of course you have to keep smart about how and where you travel.my Wife and i were out in Canada and had just left the sheltered bay at the Ranger station when we saw the group that left ahead of us had a swamped canoe and were pulling it ashore.we held close to the shore line and took the same route just outside the breaker line and then camped for the day until the wind went down without any hassle.it's like going thru rapids,you just have to watch what your doing and not try and bull thru.i lay out my trips so in two weeks i have only a couple areas of big water to deal with and can shore line those if the wind is not up,the hard bit is shore lining up wind only a few feet off the shore when you are using the paddle as a push pole on the rock to make any headway!




a down wind run to beat a storm to a camp site.



resting in a lee before making a dash across a bay mouth.



and it's just not heavy storms too watch out for.in the spring we get these rain squalls that pop up without much warning.ahead might be clear blue sky and you glance behind you to see something like this pounding down lake..i got to shore in the nick of time for this one!

I'm a sea kayaker, and I pretty much agree with hikermor's comments. Sea kayaks are much better if you will encounter rough water or wind. While some canoists can handle some serious rough water, this takes a great deal of skill and training. Ultimately, an open canoe just does not handle rough water nearly as well as a decked kayak. Also, canoes sit higher in the water than kayaks, and thus are much more susceptable to being pushed around by the wind.

That being said, I believe Canoedogs is correct that canoes are easier to portage (especially on solo trips). Also, canoes can generally carry more stuff. For longer trips, as Canoedogs mentions, a canoe has some real advantages in the amount of food and gear one can carry.

Ultimately, it comes down to a personal choice. If you are planning on travel in big open water then a sea kayak is probably the best option. On lakes and rivers, where one might need to do a lot of portaging, the canoe might be the better choice. Either way, make sure you ALWAYS WEAR a good PFD, develop some skills with your boat of choice, and exercise reasonable caution and common sense.

Have fun on the water! Some of my most enjoyable days have been spent "messing around in boats".

One thing you can say about either kayaks or canoes - they are not the money pits that are larger more elaborate vessels. For a reasonable outlay, you can indeed reap substantial rewards.

Both craft are the product of long prehistoric development and they are ideally suited to the regions in which they were perfected - the Arctic for the kayak and the north woods and south for the canoe.

Go with your personal preference.

I'm for canoes, I've never tried a kayak. OTOH, I've never even cared to try a kayak. They leave me cold, for some reason. Canoes seem 'friendlier'.

Sue

Yes, indeed! Both are fine watercraft.
Yup. Like I said, have fun on the water. I've always liked boats of all sorts, and I also have a weakness for a good quote:

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

No worries, AKSAR, we Water Rats know the quote by heart. And anybody who thinks this is a book for children needs to reset and restart. A copy resides in most of my kits. "The Water Rat was restless, and he did not exactly know why ... " -- this resonates with ever greater depth -- Tennyson echoes.

I confess I am a canoeist first. All my river memories are of canoes, well paddled, swirled in eddies, or buried in standing waves. (The latter is why you tie in your packs and Coleman cooler.) I have been looking over the Clipper line of sweet boats forever, and I think it's time. But there are many other fine boats out there, made by people who care about their craft; just please don't settle for some horrible drugstore POS that will dump you without hesitation and sour your perspective forever.

Despite my fidelity to the path of the (canoe) paddle, I must honestly confess to a wandering eye. If I am to travel solo, a sea kayak has many appealing traits. First and foremost is hull speed: on my local, fairly mild river, a solo kayaker can blast upstream quite effectively, working around the main current, camping on banks and small islands, and avoiding the horrors of the canoe shuttle.

So, I believe I need one of each. Life is short, and the rippling water calls.

Having previously owned 2 kayaks + 3 different canoes, nowadays I favor the canoe for the overall versatility in terms of being able to carry the weight of people(s) and a lot of extra gear that far exceeds anything that a kayak could carry.

That said, a kayak does have it's place and if I were to take any more trips up the Pacific coast, then I would definitively use a kayak as they handle ocean conditions much better.

Either way, it is up the individual user and before making a purchasing decision, you may want to look into renting both a canoe or kayak so that you get a firsthand impression on each of their unique handling capabilities etc.

Whatever you choose, there is nothing like enjoying a paddle on days like this...

Great photos in this thread....thanks! I'll have to throw in with the canoe crowd. I have never used a kayak, but on one spring trip into the BWCAW, I had to get to shore quick and flip my canoe over to form a shelter against golf-ball hail that was crashing down. I don't think I could have done that with a kayak.

I'll chip in from the kayak side, although I paddle whitewater instead of flatwater. Kayaks tend to be easier to learn the basics of paddling. Also, your center of gravity tends to be lower making the craft more stable. Since you're within a sealed hull (assuming you use a sprayskirt), you don't need to worry about a kayak getting swamped in waves.

On the other hand, storage space is limited and loading/unloading can be a bigger issue in a kayak. Most of your storage space is behind you, and virtually inaccessible without getting out of your boat. Some people also feel more claustrophobic in a kayak.

Either will work just fine for what it sounds like you want to do, so I'd say demo a couple of each and find out which you like more.