Canoe vs Kayak Comparison – Which Boat is Best?

So you want to have a canoe for your overland trip, to take advantage of those beautiful little lakes you find in the back of beyond? If you are an experienced canoeist you probably already own your canoe, and if you are smart canoeist you will know (a) how to lift a canoe and (b) whether the canoe you own is something you want to cart across the continent (or even just your local province). If however, you are not in that category, you may be wondering whether the 16 ft Frontiersman you inherited from Uncle Jake is really the canoe you want to take. Will your vehicle carry it? Will it be an asset or a liability? Or should you just go and spend $4,000 on a kayak instead?

Handling the Waters

The open Canadian Canoe goes most places a kayak will go, though not so quickly. Rough waters can be a problem because the canoe is open. Specialists will equip themselves with splash covers for their canoe, so that they can handle the same rough waters that a kayak can handle. An experienced solo canoeist in a smaller canoe can handle much rougher water than a pair of paddlers in a larger open canoe. Rough rapids or violent ocean tide-rips are only for the expert paddlers, in the right type of craft, whether canoe or kayak. The kayak, with its covered body, splash cover (a transition garment that is a waterproof apron tied around the paddler's waist and snapped in place around the cockpit when the paddler is in place) and its closed compartments, allows for much safer and drier travelling should the waters turn rough.

The kayak generally has a much lower profile to the wind than the canoe and is much easier to steer in a chosen direction. Some canoes have high sides, and catch the wind so much you can spend your whole day paddling on one side, just to stay on course. With experience, one learns to balance the stern stroke with the wind to achieve the right course, and to "tack" the canoe much as a sailboat tacks, so that you can change paddling sides occasionally.

While travelling, the canoeist has easy access to any gear in the canoe - as does the rain and splash; for that reason, the use of small tarps in a canoe is a good idea, as is a one inch frame floor cover of some kind, to keep gear raised off the canoe floor where rain water and slopwater accumulate.

Physical Considerations

The kayaker sits, usually with a small lower back support, and footrests (or tiller levers controlled by the feet). Larger bodied kayaks allow for the knees to be up somewhat. This writer, who suffers from chronic lower back pain, finds the kayak position unsustainable for more than an hour at a time. The proper canoeing position is on the knees with the backside resting on the thwart. Amongst canoeists there is a debate between the so-called purists who insist that kneeling is the best and safest position, and the manufacturers and users of some modern canoes equipped with seats that are on the water-line. The seated canoeist, in the opinion of this writer (based on forty years of ocean and lake canoeing), is forfeiting a critical control element. When the paddler is kneeling in a canoe, the knees transmit most of the paddler's weight directly to the floor of the canoe, allowing the slightest shift of weight to control in an instant the canoe's angle of approach to the waves. (See the next article for the performance of differing shapes of canoe hull.) The seated canoeist attempts to exert that control through the Gluteus Maximus, and through the heels, a much less reliable physical control. Most of us have a backside much narrower than the spacing of our two knees, and considerably softer as well. By the way, the regular thwarts in traiditonally designed canoes were never intended for sitting on during travel; most canoe accidents happen because paddlers are sitting up on the thwarts, in which case their centre of gravity is high above the water-line, rendering balance very precarious in any but the flattest water.

The paddling rythm in a kayak is steady and unchanging (for long flat-water travel) and the muscles are in constant use,left-right-left-right. The competent canoeist, using a steering stroke in the stern (two paddlers) or midships (solo canoeing) can paddle on one side for a good length of time, and then switches sides. This has the effect of changing the muscle use periodically, which can give at least the sensation of a rest for one set of muscles. It also evens the calloussing on the hands. I have often paddled for 3 or 4 hours at a time, fishing or travelling across major channels.

User Convenience

Here's a typical experience comparing the two craft launching from the same location: my wife and I were setting out in our 13 foot wood-canvas canoe one day from Gabriola Island (near Vancouver Island, on the West Coast of Canada). A couple arrived at the beach with a two person kayak at the same time. We each took the same time to untie our crafts and carry them to the shore. I portaged our canoe on my own. It took the two of them to move the kayak. My paddles and cushions and lifejackets were all strapped into my canoe, and by the time I had unstrapped and put them in position,my wife had the picnic bag and water bottles from the car and we were ready to launch. The kayakers were still putting on their splashcovers and unloading their paddles from their SUV, as we pushed off from the shore. We were about halfway to the marine park that was our destination, some twenty minutes later, when the kayakers finally caught up with us and passed us. In other words, the canoe is simpler to prepare and load, though slower to paddle.

If fishing is to be part of the day, and it often is on those wonderful side trips you hear about from the locals in the bar or around the campground firepit from travellers who have been exploring already, then the kayaker has some special challenges handling rod and reel, and gaff or net.

Boating a large salmon or a wall-eye in a kayak can involved a bit more intimacy with the fish than many of us desire! On the other hand, I have landed a 30 pound salmon in my canoe with no trouble, and once a 20 pound ling cod that had foolishly chosen to make lunch of a small rock cod I had hooked. My dog was in the canoe on that occasion, and thought seriously about swimming home until the cod stopped re-arranging my tackle and the dog discovered that there was enough room in one canoe for her and a 33 inch fish.

Vehicle Loading

Any canoe 16 feet or less can be fairly easy to shoulder (there is a technique to "throwing" a canoe over your head) and if your vehicle is not too high it can be transferred onto a roof-top carrier. The Kayak that will carry you both will take both of you to load and unload, though it will take less width on the roofrack. Two single kayaks can easily be mounted on most flat-roofed cars and SUVs, with special mounting hardware. Length can be an issue. A two-person kayak will extend beyond the rear of most vehicles. Wind resistance will be slightly higher for a canoe than for kayaks, so you need to assess how much of your journey will be at highway speeds where wind resistance becomes a significant fuel drain (anything over 50 mph or 80 kph).

Foam blocks are available which go over the gunwhales of a canoe and allow it to be tied directly to the roof a vehicle; however, these cannot provide the secure tie-down of ropes or straps applying downward force directly down the canoe sides and under a roof rack. Beware the kind of roof rack which clips to a drip moulding or under the top of the door opening. Straps can work loose with a combination of getting wet and drying out and the vibration of rough roads and/or high speed slip-stream effects. The positive metal clip is a minimum standard for security, and the built in roof rack, either stock or after-market but installed by the dealer, is the most reliable. Bungy cords are tempting because they are quicker than tying knots, but are to be avoided. If your companion is on the other side of the car and the bungy you are stretching slips out of your fingers, serious injury and possible divorce can follow.

I once lost my canoe from the roof rack on my Volvo (travelling at 90 kph) when a large Semi passing in the opposite direction at high speed created so much suction it actually lifted the canoe, which then unhooked the bungy cord as it settled back on the roof rack. It was a sick feeling to look in my rear view mirror and see my canoe sailing over the Volkswagen behind me and crashing to the pavement.

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