My second canoe was a rotten old stripper which I thought was a bargain at $150. After removing all the rotten trim, gunwales, thrwarts, seats, decks, and peeling off most of the exterior fibreglass, I joined a night course which build canvas covered canoes and also helped people repair their wooden canoes. After about 4 weeks of trying to build new form stations to re-build the misshapen hull, one of the instructors came up to me in a quiet moment and confessed that he didn't believe that my canoe was worth restoring, and that for the same amount of effort and money I could build a nice new canoe. I suddenly felt a pit in my stomach. My poor canoe would never see water again.

The instructors helped me build a great 17' prospector stripper on one of their canvas canoe molds. I had dreams of turning the old canoe into bookshelves, but in the end the only thing I ended up saving were the brass stembands which I put on the new canoe.

Since then I've restored and am retoring a several canoes and kayaks, including a couple of fibreglass canoes on which I replaced every bit of trim with new wood trim. It is a lot of work, but rewarding.

You should have fun fixing this canoe up, learning as you go. Chris