C-Forum

I recently became the proud owner of a Old Town Discovery 16. She is old, scratched, cracked and beautiful... and not not so good at anything over easy class II...

On a recent paddling excursion, I met a fellow on the portage trail who had what looked like a Discovery, but with way more rocker and proper whitewater outfitting. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the boat had had two darts cut into either side of the center thwart, about two feet apart. Once these pieces had been removed, the bow and stern were pushed up, and the outside seam had been plastic welded (or something like that) and the the inside seam had fiberglass patches... Bam! a whitewater canoe had been made!

I went home full of excitement and plans to transform my lowly Discovery into the most badass tandem whitewater boat out there.. so now I ask.. Has anyone done something like this? or know of anyone who has? Advice? Ideas? Suggestions?

I have a 169 That a Maine outfitter used they added an additional thwart in the bow and widened the boat

I'd start by pulling the gunnels in with shorter thwarts.

Then if I wanted to add rocker, instead of cutting out one big triangle on each side, I'd want to makes several smaller triangles spaced geometerically closer as they reach the ends (so 3 feet from the centre, then 1.5 feet from the first one, then 9" from that and finally 4.5" from that).

To pull it together I'd cut a new set of shorter gunnels and install them, warming the plastic with a heat gun to help with bending it where neseccary.

Once you had new shorter gunnels fitted to pull the cutouts in, I'd use ABS slurry (or plastic welding depending on what it's made of) to seal it up.

Then you just need to cut out and install, 4 thwarts & two sets of saddle, bulkhead and sidewalls, lace it and find enough airbags.

wow, thats alot of work.

If you're cutting up a canoe to make a white water open canoe, you might as well go the whole hog.

Or buy one new.

Our Disco 169's been on II+ / III- with the only mods being skid plates and a center air bag.

As far as I know, Discoverys have a fair resemblance to the OT Tripper. When I acquired a Tripper, it wasn't quite as agile as I wanted for solo work. The center thwart had already been widened.

My next and only step was to wedge a foam pedestal seat (actually kind of a triple saddle) that pushed the bottom of the boat down somewhat. A standard tripper has its rocker mostly at the ends, while the middle bottom is fairly straight. After my modification, there was a pivot section in the middle of the boat that made turning much easier. The boat was also more agile when paddled tandem.

I have no idea whether the poly sandwich in a Discovery will behave the same way as our Tripper's Royalex. However, a wedged in foam pedestal may help the oil canning I have seen in Discoverys. We rented a Discovery 15-9 or whatever to paddle the Edisto, and the boat oil canned badly enough to ruin whatever handling may have been intended by the designer.

BUy a WW boat

I have a disco and wouldn't dream of cutting it as described. I'd be worries that the first time I got it sideway on a rock in the current it would break in half. I would keep disco as is and keep looking if you can.

What Richard said! Discovery is a good boat for easy day trips , camping , fishing , etc but for real WW you'll need a real boat

The Disco is made from a 3 layer linear polyethylene.

Welding it's gonna be a PITA. I wouldn't trust G-Flex even though some are swearing by it.

There is a much easier way to reshape plastic. Heat.

Build a rough jig of what you want the boat to shape into. Put it out into the hot sun, fill the middle with water, and let it heat and sag into the new shape. If you're energetic you can keep dumping boiling water into the boat, otherwise let the sun/ gravity do it's thing.

My first canoe was a Discovery 158. The big selling point was its virtual indestructibility. I think that if you bent it with heat and weight and didn't permanently brace it in the new position, it would just pop back into its original shape the next time it warmed up.
I also had a friend with a Disco 169 which was supposed to be similar to a Tripper. Both the 158 and 169 were pigs but took alot of abuse. They were adequate for beginners doing class 2 day trips, but not much fun if you wanted more performance.

I agree, buy a ww boat

Disco 169 which was supposed to be similar to a Tripper.

I was told by the dealer who has been to the factory that they used the same mold/mold design the 169 shrinks a little more that the royalex after cooling