Requiem or Renaissance for This Workhorse of the Rivers?
The Tin Tank in the 21st Century
Tamia took her first paddle strokes in her grandfather’s “tin tank.” But until recently, she figured the aluminum canoe would go the way of the passenger pigeon and the dodo. Then a picture in PaddleNews caught her eye, and she started having second thoughts. What’s in the future for the workhorse of the rivers?
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by Tamia Nelson | April 28, 2015
With apologies to Rodney Dangerfield, the aluminum canoe don’t get no respect. I blame Harry Roberts, the cordially cantankerous editor of the long-defunct magazine Wilderness Camping. Harry, too, is long dead, sadly, but when he was alive and paddling, he had few good words for aluminum canoes. “Garbage barge” was a favorite epithet, as was “gravy boat,” and I think he may have coined the tag “tin tank,” as well. Harry was tall and skinny, and he liked his boats long and lean, not buxom and broad-beamed. The fact that he did much of his canoeing on the New York State Barge Canal may have influenced his judgment, I suppose. But Harry’s opinions carried weight, and his disparaging words about aluminum canoes coincided with the first full flowering of the Age of Plastic. The tin tank didn’t stand a chance.
It hung on, however. Just. And with the demise of Royalex, it may now be poised for a comeback. At least that’s the impression I got from a recent Paddling.net newsletter showcasing a 17-foot aluminum canoe. No, plastic isn’t going away anytime soon. (In fact, plastic never goes away. The world’s rivers and oceans are filling up with the stuff. This is a problem, and it’s coming to a river near you — soon.) But the aftershocks from the announcement that production of Royalex would end in 2014 may encourage both paddlers and manufacturers to look at the tin tank in a new light. It may even become respectable again.
After all, for several decades following the end of World War II, …
The Tin Tank Ruled the Waves
Not that aluminum (or “aluminium,” if your first language is English) was a new material back then. The element has been around as long as the earth, and the smelted metal was already being used to make a wide range of consumer products — including bicycle frames — by the late 19th century. But the tin tank was an invention born of necessity in the years immediately after the Second World War, as the Grumman Corporation struggled to cope with a sudden drop in orders for aluminum-skinned, carrier-based fighters and torpedo bombers.
Of course, Grumman’s new line of canoes could never replace Hellcats and Avengers on the company’s books. Still, the tin tank quickly won a place in paddlers’ hearts. Wood-canvas boats pretty much had the market to themselves in the first half of the 20th century, but they required regular, time-consuming maintenance. They also became a little heavier every day during the season, as the planking and canvas absorbed water, and they were easily damaged by careless handling and loading. By contrast, aluminum canoes needed little or no routine maintenance, didn’t absorb water, and shrugged off most abuse. This constellation of virtues appealed to both livery owners and individual paddlers, and before long, wood-canvas boats were rare sights on North American rivers. Even the Hudson’s Bay Company got into the act, with a short-lived rental program offering aluminum canoes to recreational paddlers who were heading up North. The tin tank simply rolled over the competition.
And while many other manufacturers also jumped into the water, so to speak, Grumman led the pack. For most post-war paddlers, my grandfather among them, “Grumman” was now synonymous with “canoe.” But that changed when Old Town threw a Royalex Tripper off the factory roof, photographed it bouncing, and proved that it could quickly be stomped back into shape. Mind you, Old Town wasn’t so ungentlemanly as to say, “Try that with your Grumman.” But they didn’t have to. A tin tank could survive many hard knocks and countless rough landings — there was a time when nearly every submerged boulder in every Canoe Country river sported a shiny streak of aluminum — but once it wrapped itself in a tight embrace around a mid-river rock, it was often destined for the scrapyard.
So it’s not surprising that whitewater canoeists were the first to spurn aluminum for Royalex. But the liveries soon followed suit, and aluminum canoes, like the wood-canvas boats they replaced, were relegated to the role of seldom-seen curiosities. Grumman even got out of the canoe business altogether, selling its boat division to O.M.C. in 1990. The tin tank now appeared to be sinking fast, never to rise again. But then it suddenly resurfaced, following a second buy-out by former Grumman managers, and for a time the aboriginal tin tank was marketed under the Marathon name. And today? Even the Grumman eagle badge is back on the bow. Is the world of paddlesport about to experience another sea change? Is the tin tank poised to rule the waves once more? It’s possible, I think, and with that in mind, let’s take a second look at …
The Discreet Charm of the Aluminum Canoe
Nothing is forever. That goes without saying. But an aluminum canoe comes close. Unless you wrap it around a rock, it will withstand many seasons of hard use with little or no maintenance. It doesn’t need babying. About all you really have to do is rinse it off with fresh water after a day at the seashore. You can leave the Armor All and 303 on the store shelf. And you can also leave your tin tank outside and unprotected in (almost) all weathers. Tether it against rising gales, by all means, and get it under shelter if there’s six feet of snow in the forecast. But the rest of the time, benign neglect will see you and your trusty river workhorse through the worst that the cycle of the seasons has to offer. Your boat won’t start to sag in the heat of the tropics. It won’t crack in sub-zero cold. And it won’t go brittle no matter how many hours it spends in the midday sun.
But what if the awful day comes when you do wrap your tank around a rock? Don’t give up the ship just yet. A welding shop may be able to repair the damage, and if that’s not possible, you can still cart the pieces off to the recycling center. Who knows? You may find a little bit of Old Faithful in your next six-pack. Or in your next Jag. And in the fullness of time, the aluminum will return to the earth from which it came. That’s real immortality for you!
I can’t deny that the tin tank offends some paddlers’ aesthetic sensibilities, of course. In fact, I think this explained Harry Roberts’ disdain for the breed. But I’m a Bauhaus girl. In my book, form follows function. And the tin tank melds traditional form with industrial design in a way that I find most attractive — and very functional. It has the stark, efficient beauty of a 1935 Olivetti Studio 42 typewriter (a real Bauhaus-inspired design, as it happens).
To be sure, the tin tank isn’t perfect. It’s heavier than Kevlar, and the comparatively blunt ends don’t lend themselves to speedy passages. It’s a tank, not a Formula One racer. (But I know which of these I’d choose if I had to go cross-country.) It’s also blisteringly hot to the touch in the tropical sun and icy cold in arctic waters. The internal ribs can be hellishly painful for unprotected knees, too. And then there’s the proven ability of aluminum to grab hold of passing underwater rocks, an unfortunate proclivity that’s been the undoing of many whitewater paddlers.
No matter. Judiciously placed paint and padding can ameliorate many of these ills. Painting the bow deck will cut down on the glare in the bow paddler’s eyes, for example. And paste wax can make any aluminum hull a bit slipperier. (The improvement will be short-lived, however. You’re better off learning to miss the rocks.) The one shortcoming for which there is no real remedy is the noise. An aluminum canoe has many of the properties of a bell. Ripples slapping against the bow can be heard for hundreds of yards on a quiet day, and a careless tap with a paddle shaft in mid-lake will reverberate from the neighboring hills for what seems like hours — though it’s probably no more than several seconds at most. And while good paddling form will minimize the number of impromptu peals that accompany your passage over the water, the ripples can’t be stilled. They’ll continue to speak, do what you will. In short, there is no cure for this disease, and that led Harry Roberts to coin another of his deprecatory tags: “boomalum.” Yet there’s also a bright side to this phenomenon. You’ll probably never take a brown bear by surprise on a salmon river. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?
OK. The tin tank had a glorious past. And it’s still hanging on. But …
Does It Have a Future?
I think it does. Durability and utility are virtues, after all. And while hard-charging creek boaters aren’t likely to jump ship to aluminum, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot more tin tanks on Canoe Country waters in the years to come. The aluminum canoe may shine again.
I took my first paddle strokes in my grandfather’s tin tank. But until recently, I’d figured the aluminum canoe would go the way of the passenger pigeon and the dodo. Then a picture in PaddleNews caught my eye, and I started having second thoughts. Is the tin tank coming back? I can’t say for sure, but I wouldn’t bet on it going extinct. So long as common sense still counts for anything, the workhorse of the rivers is here to stay.
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