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April 2018
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boatingonthehudson.com
To put September 16th in perspective, let’s talk about
the Carleton a bit. Back in those days, your choice of
canoes was aluminum, aluminum, or aluminum. And,
pretty much Grumman. The Carleton was, at that time,
“State of the Art” for an affordable “plastic” boat. It was
a handsome boat, made even
more eye-catching by the
name “THUMPER III” I had
white 10-inch instant-lettered
along both sides. We were on
Cloud Nine, and raced it on
several local creeks.
Looking back, the Carleton
was not by any means a swift,
efficient boat. Multi-layer
Royalex had been invented,
but Royalex canoes may not
have been, and, similarly,
Kevlar was the material
of choice for bullet-proof
vests, not canoes. The thick
polyethylene simply could not be shaped into a narrow,
slice-through-the-water bow: the bow of our current
fastest, most efficient boat, an 18-foot Kevlar We No
Nah Jensen is about a half-inch wide; the Carleton’s
snub nose was about four inches wide. And, the hull
was designed more for stability than efficiency. Finally,
it weighed in at about 100 pounds—maybe more. The
Jensen weighs 53 pounds, and it’s sleek hull glides
effortlessly through the water. Looking back, by
comparison the Carleton plowed through the water,
pretty much as if we were paddling a very heavy, old-
fashioned, cast-iron lion-
clawed bathtub!
OK, fast-forward to 2017,
as we wrestle our dark
green, swift, efficient, 17-
foot Royalex Sundowner off
the roof of the Subaru at the
Norrie boat launch. A guy
with a dark green official-
looking shirt walks over to us
and says “Didn’t you bring
an Old Town Carleton here
about 30 years ago???”
Just kidding: he really said
“It costs three dollars to
launch your boat in a State
Park on weekends.” Crap: it is Saturday: why didn’t
we come up here yesterday??? We grumbled a bit—
shooting the messenger—then grudgingly peeled off
three singles, and eventually launched on the nifty
KAYAK launch, and headed out past the dozens and
dozens of fancy boats, sitting there, moored on this