We purchased the Esquif Prospecteur 16 in T-Formex from LL Bean in Freeport, Maine on a Sunday and a few days later carried it half a mile for drill purposes. We soon realized that the boat weighed considerably more than the 65 lbs. described by Esquif on its website.
After weighing the boat using the method we have used to confirm the weight of other canoes we have owned, we discovered that this particular Prospecteur 16 weighs 76.4 lbs. Since we portage a great deal and are getting older, the weight of a canoe is very important. It is natural for a canoe to weigh a few pounds more or less than the manufacturer’s description, but a boat that weighs 17.5% more than it should is clearly either defective or perhaps close to what these boats actually weigh much of the time.
We wrote to Esquif about this issue but they did not respond, so we took the boat back to LL Bean and got our money back.
Out of the 10 canoes that my wife and I have purchased over the last 45 years we have encountered this problem twice. It is a problem that anyone purchasing a new boat should be aware of. As for Esquif, we have no idea what they are doing. We don’t even know if they even think this is a problem.
