Towing a Souris River behind a motorboat

Q. My friend wants me to take my Q17 on our annual Canadian fishing trip, and I think that is cool. However, he thinks we can pull it behind the fishing boat (Lund semi-V with a 20 horse motor) to a point where we can portage back to a lake not accessible otherwise. I told him towing the boat is discouraged (I assume because some nut could pull it fast behind a power boat and beat the snot out of it). IF we go slow and IF we make sure the boat gets no pounding, is towing it empty a problem?

Thanks.

A. If you go SLOW and it doesn't get a pounding then you could do it. Problem is that when the canoe is under tow and riding up on the wake behind the boat, you can't see if the flexible ribs are being pushed all the way up to the bottom of the carrying yoke. I have an SR Wilderness 18 in kevlar here right now that experienced that very problem. They were traveling at a moderate pace when a passing towboat made a 4 foot wake that they passed over. The big wave slammed under the canoe and they still kept going as it did instead of slowing down and immediately slacking up on the tow rope so the wave sould pass with no tow pressure on the canoe. It ended up making two 6" rips in the outside fiberglass layer (on all SR's) because it flexed beyond the capacity of the fiberglass causing two 6 inch outside tears on each side of the canoe. No damage to the kevlar inside but fiberglass, unlike kevlar, cannot withstand a complete folding in as was done to this canoe. It'll be easy to repair and won't affect the canoe performance at all but it could have been avoided by not towing it. These canoes are made to flex and do so under extreme conditions where an aluminum canoe would remain rigid particularly when being towed. If you hit rough water, you might run into problems. Pushing a canoe through the water via paddles is different and it won't experience problems in really rough waters. It would be better if you laid the canoe across the boat or in the boat somehow. No use wrecking a perfectly good canoe if you don't have to.

Joe

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