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This question got me thinking about Canoes, Troop Trailers, & Buses.
Julus Pahl writes:
Clarke I am wondering how to go about getting canoes for a troop?
The troop I am working with only camps and the current SM is training me to take over. In the past the boys pretty much only camped and this has taken a toll on the older Scouts! They want something more…something different!
My troop growing up tended to canoe and backpack so I am eager to introduce the boys to both. I have access to several great beginner rivers in our county and priced out renting canoes. Renting and return transportation for a three day canoe trip would be 1/4 of the price of buying a beginner canoe! Any tips or hints?
I would be leary about being too worried about older Scouts carping about nothing new to do. Boys this age change opinions as quickly as they change clothes. (If you go out and buy canoes they’ll likely end up finding fault with all those canoe trips!)
I’ll remind everyone the real older boy program in Scouting is the challenge of leadership and responsibility. Sounds kind of dry but it really works! They do need and want bigger adventures and challenges too but I always emphasize how important it is that they stay engaged and active as leaders.
That being said I think canoeing is great! In fact I’ve thought of trying to get some canoes for our Troop too but there’s not enough good canoe tripping water nearby to make it worth the investment. I determined this by doing my own resource survey.
First I drew a circle that represented an hour’s trip form our meeting place. We’ll drive more than an hour for a weekend trip every once in a while but mostly try and stay in the one hour circle. Then I asked myself how many places could we go canoeing within that circle, if these were places where we could camp or just places to go paddling and also worked out what the itinerary for these trips would look like.
There were several places we could go but most had no camping opportunities and the possible itineraries did not look all that promising. We tried a couple of these places in rental canoes. In the end it was hard to justify bringing our own.
If you do have three or four great trips within reach I’d say that you have the resources to make the investment; but their are other factors to consider.
- PFD’s, paddles and throw ropes with buoys add about $75-100 per canoe.
- Check on any applicable local laws (canoes usually don’t have to be registered or licensed) also check with your local council and chartered partner to see if they have any restrictions or concerns.
- Consider how you are going to transport these and if there are any insurance issues involved for drivers (if you’re going to transport atop private cars you may want to have the canoes insured against damage and you’ll need to figure in the cost of the gear to secure the canoes).
- If you are going to get a purpose built trailer that will need to be factored in – initial investment, annual insurance, and storage – plus you’ll need a tow vehicle available.
If you’ve really studied the issue and decided it’s worth the investment I’d suggest you look for used canoes in the classifieds. You may even be able to get a couple by offering a tax receipt for a donation (if your chartered partner is a 501C3).
Check with rental outfitters, they often sell off their older canoes relatively inexpensively. I’d think you could get acceptable used Royalex canoes for about $500.00 each. Cheaper beginner canoes are a false economy; higher quality gear lasts longer and is usually better to work with.
I’ve researched several major capital purchases like this for my troop in detail. Should we buy a trailer? How about a bus? Should we build a cabin? The real cost of ownership, storage, insurance, transportation, licensing, accessories, maintenance, always ends up being significantly more than I first thought.
If you sit down and do the numbers you may find that the rental, which seems high right now, is really a bargain. For example we spend about $900.00 a trip to charter a bus once or twice a year. About half comes from what we charge participants and the other half from the troop treasury. We’d pay significantly more every year to own, maintain, insure, license and store a bus.
The hidden cost on major capital acquisitions like a troop trailer is the organizational energy you’ll expend towards the new asset. This is an ongoing commitment of time and resources that is hard to quantify. Funding, physical maintenance and organizational maintenance are all important factors.
Every troop has a finite resource of organizational capital; if we spend it in one direction we may have less to devote to other concerns.
Greetings Clarke,
Excellent reflection on capital investments. Our original scoutmaster was a real “nonprofit entrepreneur”. For a number of years, he had a fleet of donated buses which the troop occasionally used (maintained by a series of interlocking nonprofits which made my head spin). While it was nice going to camp, in general it was a nightmare. The cost of insurance year-round was prohibitive. Also, storage was a big issue.
We have found that storage is the big issue on things like canoes and trailers. They really take up alot of real estate (unless your troop has a sugar daddy with lots of space). Given the fact that they won’t be used THAT often, renting always comes out on top. For a trailer, it might be most worthwhile, but you still have insurance and storage issues.
Use an outfitter. Plan it into your budget. Tell them you are Scouts and ask for a discount. Trailers are a pain. Canoes and gear must be maintained. Storing canoe trailers can be a problem. What happens when the guy who has a place to store it gives it back and no one else can store it? How many canoes? Eight (four on each side of the trailer)? Ten (five on each side)? What happens when you have eight boats and you need 19 seats?
You bought a trailer with 10 canoes for 20 people. Add two Scouts to your troop and you need another trailer with 9 canoes that you almost never use.
IMHO. Get rid of trailers, canoe trailers, box trailers, the whole bit. I agree with Clarke that it’s too much overhead. We have a trailer that we can’t open the back door anymore and can’t find anyone to fix it. Totally bogus. A situation that I inherited. I think that Scouts should own almost all of their own equipment. Use it, take care of it, clean it and be responsible for it.
In my previous troop the only equipment the troop owned were the dutch ovens. I sit in my chair at camporees and watch troops set up. It takes them 2 to 4 hours to set up the giant tarp houses, patrol boxes (that the Scouts cannot pick up and the adults carry), tables, chairs, stoves, etc. and then 2 to 4 hours to take it all back down again. Scouting is rarely happening in those places. The dads do a lot of the Scouting. The adults cook the meals. The adults pack the gear back into the trailers (the boys can’t really get it organized correctly, don’t you know?) Sometimes they even set up the Scout’s tents.
No adults are allowed inside the troop trailer at the campsite. The Scouts must unpack it and repack it Sunday morning. We use it about 2 weekends a year. YMMV
The scouts of my troop love canoeing. We have two realistic options. We can go to a place 60 miles away that has a 15 mile day trip available. We rent everything, and divide the cost amoung the participants. We do this usually as an August outing, where we stop for pizza for supper before the drive back to home base. It is hard to camp at this hottest of all times of the year in our climate, so not many have a problem with not camping overnight. The only problem with this option is the drunken college kids making horses arses of themselves on the river.
Our second option is to camp at a council camp near a great river, borrow the council conoes, take them 20 miles up river, canoe back to the camp (located right on the river), and bar-b-que on a grill at the end of the day. This is an early summer trip that the boys like. The council invests in the canoes and equipment for use by council units. Problem: you have to book 6 months in advance to get the canoes.
We could borrow the canoes from the council and take them to a lake or something. We would have to line up the trucks needed to pull the canoe trailers to our destinations. We have in the past done this and canoed to an island in the middle of a large lake, where we had the location to ourselves.
I know of a larger troop that purchased their own canoes, and to my knowledge they used them once in a 3 year period. I don’t think we would opt to do this unless we could use them 4 or more times per year. Our leaders usually vote to do a more varied camping program.