Men and their Canoes

A 23 foot long through lounge may have been top of the wish list for aspiring homeowners in the 1970's but for my Father it afforded an opportunity to build a canoe in the rear 11 feet whilst still retaining the front 12 feet, with settee, pouffe, coffee table and TV aerial socket for family use.

My Mother may have agreed to the idea prior to the commencement of the project but had she known that canoe launch day did not actually take place for another 2 years she may have had a different view.

The canoe was in kit form through a company called Ottersports and arrived in a very large box like an oversized Airfix model.

The particular project was entirely in wood which must have been marine ply or laminated .

The parts forming the hull had to be glued, taped and carefully pinned in position and some evenings and some weekends when not attending to family responsibilities my Father did a little bit more work on the single seater.

On finer days the work took place on the patio with the superstructure, bows and cockpit taking shape al fresco.

The lounge carpet held up well on inclement working days.

My parents, then in their early forties , had "Keeping fit Commando Style" on cassette and the same rear section of the lounge doubled up as a gym in early morning sessions . This was apt as many of the exercises around the boat assembly line took on the appearance of training for an amphibious assault.

Progress with the wooden torpedo was slow and my Mother took us kids off for a week after matrimonial relations became strained over the prolonged project.

I often thought that the all-pervading smell of varnish in the later stages may have contributed to behaviour otherwise totally out of character for a loving couple.

It was a very proud day for my Father when the completed canoe was loaded onto the VW roofrack as part of the mass transit that was the Thomson's going on holiday- estate car, boat, caravan, 5 children, overflow tents and chemical toilet, in fact all the trappings.

On it's maiden voyage what a machine the canoe was.

The steeply raked hull made for a very fast speed through the Scottish Loch but on the downside this was accompanied by considerable instability. It had the sensation of riding  white water rapis but in fact the surface of the Loch was nothing but a smooth mirror of water.

I seem to remember initial enthusiasm from us kids for a paddle but second requests were not forthcoming and we busied ourselves with looking for fish, bleached sheeps' bones and following severed fishing lines to find abandoned spinners and lures stuck in the rocky floor of the shallows of the Loch.

I must have put 'Experienced with watersports' on my CV as I soon found myself being pushed headfirst into a fibre glass canoe at my Scout Troop Hut in order to resin together the moulded hull and deck. It was a very unpleasant task indeed and only bearable for a few minutes and probably outlawed now in all but the illegal sweat-shops.

Was it my experience or as I suspect that I was undersized for my age and ideally suited to the fume laden , runny eyes and wheezy chest operation in the narrow confines only intended for the canoeists legs.

A bit later on my Father acquired another canoe - an open deck Canadian version for expeditions up river but it was just too heavy to be even lifted on and off a roof rack and I am not sure now that it ever had a christening under our ownership.

I am still fascinated by all things canoe and recently marvelled at a metal hulled Grumman canoe on the canal at North Frodingham. It was a  flat bottomed tourer in which the elderly owner regularly took his grandchildren and multiple dogs up river for hours on end with no jeopardy or instability even with an unruly and inquisitive crew.

I have some intentions to one day canoe the full navigable length of the River Hull from the Tidal Barrier to its deep set source in the hinterland.

My wife has expressed some concerns but it's not as if I'm going to disappear off the coast of Hartlepool and turn up in Panama.....is it.

There is to my knowledge no direct route from the Humber Bank Horsewash to South America - or is it there to be discovered..........?