Canoe Terms Key, and Canoe Selection Tips

Ozark River Company

To the Canoes

• Canoe Gunwale – (pronounced gunnel)  Long typically black poly pieces that run the length of the boat, on each side of the seats, that trim the sides of the boat.  

• Canoe Deck – Front and rear (deck) top surfaces that the gunwale pieces fit into, trimming the tops of the front and back of the boat.  

• Canoe Deck Plate –The emblem plate showing the manufacturer and tradition such as Old Town ’s oval brass plate.  

• Canoe Thwart – Typically wooden pieces that cross the boat, and tie together the sides or gunwales.  These add rigidity as well as make good tie down locations for gear.  

• Canoe Carrying Yoke – The center cross piece, typically wooden, with the curve cut out. The cut out is for carrying the boat.  The cut out fits behind one’s neck, once the canoe has been flipped.  (Be careful!)  

• Canoe Bow – Front of the canoe    Stern – Back of the canoe  

• Canoe Hull – This is the shaped and engineered outside bottom of a boat, to not exclude the entire membrane and components.  

• Canoe Rocker – Curve from front to back as it sits on a flat plane or floor.  A lot of rocker has a "rocking chair curve" from front to back, and no rocker has "no rocking chair curve".  The more rocker the easier to steer, but can make the boat wander.  The less rocker the harder it is to bring the boat around, wider turning radius per effort, but tracks straighter with the long contact in the water from front to back.  This is important in selection for control.  

• Canoe Hull Profile – There are many terms, shallow arch, shallow "V", tumble home, straight side, flared (from the water up), tapered (from the water line up), all reflecting the curve at the bottom, and what the sides are shaped like.  A flat bottom that is wide is more stable, so look at the width dimension and bottom shape.  Straight sides, flared, or tapered sides do not make a huge difference, other than paddle clearance, and a little different feel when the boat is leaned.  All are adaptable.  Most profiles will be matched to fit the rocker, and use.  Boats designed for rivers with rocker usually have deeper sides, adversely a boat with little rocker will have a shallower or lower sides.  Still water boats are typically wider too.   Primary or initial stability is how the boat feels with smaller movements.  If it has a pitchy feel, it has less initial stability.  If it feels very stable with smaller movements, it has good initial stability.  Secondary stability comes in when the boat is leaned, as many steering and maneuvering practices employ. Secondary stability is good when the boat is leaned a bit, and it feels good there.  Where there is secondary stability, there is a buoyancy of the side profile, that will allow you to run on one "edge" of the boat.  Flat bottom boat profiles are not made to be leaned, rather recreational care free feel.  Shallow V can have pretty good initial stability, but still be leaned over a bit to take advantage of the steering results desired by running one side of the boat.  There, the secondary stability of many shallow v designs are felt.  A round bottom is a slippery feel, sometimes found on highly rockered river models.  These you can "sit and spin", and rightfully so when going down a class 3 rapid, with rocks or boulders to avoid, eddies to jump in to, and a changing water line to maintain.  Planing hulls can sometimes be found, a highly rockered boat, with a bit of a flat plane on the bottom.

• Canoe Keel Line – This is a ridge that runs the length of the boat on the very center, bottom edge.  The lip or keel line has a disadvantage in rivers, when the boat is sideways and catches rocks, or the keel line sustains the bulk of the impact and is a potential point of focused damage.  No keel line is better for river, yet the keel line works well in lakes for tracking straighter, and is helpful in side breezes.  Keel lines for lakes.  

• Canoe Roto-mold Material -   Roto mold (made with rotating mold) As an example, Old Town's Superlink or Polylink is a plastic (polyethylene) powder that is thrown into a hot mold shaped like the boat.  The mold rotates, and the plastic pellets melt to the surface of the mold, creating the outside layer of the boat.  In multi layer construction, the second layer is thrown in after the first layer is complete, and has a foam texture in the material.  Lastly, the third layer is added with it's powder, and as the boat mold spins, it allows all cavities to be filled and boat to become uniform in shape and thickness.  Cool down the mold, and a boat has been born!  Superlink uses the best in materials available, in a mold that rotates in more than one axis.  Linear lay up (Polylink or Super linear) is a single axis rotation of the mold.

• Canoe Royalex - by DuPont / Oltinar - This is an ABS substrate material which is a harder plastic than polylink or superlink, with an additional difference in how it is made.  Royalex is made in large boat size sheets at the Royalex factory.  The sheets are manufactured with tight control processes in place, and using an 8 layer lay up, three thin layers on the inside and outside surfaces, and a foam core in the middle.  The thickness is tightly controlled, so the weight is typically 18 pounds less.  Then the sheets are sent to the boat plant to be heated in a large oven, then formed with a vacuum mold to give the sheet a canoe shape.The sheet is then put in an oven at the boat manufacturer, and then pulled out of the oven over a cold vacuum mold.  The vacuum sucks the sheet into place draped over this mold, then the top comes down and wa-la, a canoe stamped out of a sheet.  Cut off the "sprew" and there ya go! The average cost is $400 more than the polylink or superlink canoes. 

• Fiberglass - Glass composition fiber cloth sheets, with resin and hardener chemicals that form a very finish able surface.  

• Kevlar - similar in lay up to fiberglass, with a bullet proof reputation, allowing for a very thin lay up, making boats and materials extremely tough and light weight.  Canoes are not made to be bulletproof, rather take advantage of the lack of material needed, for the strength required, of a canoe.

Lake versus River Recommendations

1. Rocker for River- The bigger the waves in the river’s whitewater, the more the rocker. A boat with lots of rocker and round bottom is squirrelly to the novice, and maneuverable to the pro.

2. Stability for the Sportsman– The flatter the bottom, the less tippy.  Boats with lots of rocker do have rounder bottoms! 

3. Length, what’s the difference – The longer, the straighter tracking, the shorter, the easier to turn.

4. Speed has to do with length – Again, the longer the faster, less resistance, the shorter the slower, and more resistance

5. Lake Still Water Call - Long is faster, little rocker is also straighter tracking, less steering when covering a straight line distance, meaning less paddling effort in this case.  Wider turning radius, have lots of room for that.  Flatter bottom allows for attention elsewhere rather than holding the boat stable, like throwing a fishing line out.  Keel line is fine!  

6. Two Paddlers? - What is the other person paddling?  Keep up on an expanse lake, or follow through a rapid.  What are they paddling?  Want to paddle in an established paddling area?  What style a boat are the regulars paddling?  Are they all the same?  Good advice in that...

7. Owning more than one boat solves many problems -  It is difficult to pick a boat that will do everything, although the extremes are where the specialty comes in to be the best advantage.  You can do smaller lakes to class one rivers in many boats that are considered multipurpose.  With canoes there are "corvettes for the wide road", and "four wheel drives for the hills and curves and rugged terrain"..