Hi everyone,
In my quest for a used 17' royalex canoe, I've come across an opportunity to purchase a 16' ft Nova Craft Royalex Prospector.

I'm an experienced tripper, but not with this size or style of canoe. Most of my trips have been up to 10 days. But looking to extend these in the near future. What do you think is the maximum length trip possible with this size and type of canoe for two adults and a 40lb dog?

Of course there are lots of "depends" to be answered first.

What is the combined weight of the paddlers?
How do you eat? Lots of fresh food or mostly freeze dried?
Is your outfit moderate or ultra-light?

Now here is my experience with my 16' woodstrip Prospector. We are big folks and eventually moved to a bigger canoe, but did a bunch of 10-14 day tours in BWCA/Quetico in the Prospector. Our combined weight was 450-500 pounds and we had about 130 lbs of outfit for ten days. 580-630 pounds total. At that we felt the boat was about maxed out. The prospector is a deep hull 15 inches at midpoint. Novacraft website says maximum capacity 1000Lbs. That is just BS. Maybe with 6 inches freeboard. However 6 inches freeboard in a shallow-arch hull is not enough to be safe. Way more movement than a flat bottomed hull. It is not unstable as it has excellent secondary stability, but initial stability is less. We enjoyed this hull on rough days on big lakes.

So, figure your paddler weight and outfit weight and figure how much per day your food weighs. If you are lightweight folks the governing factor might be space for packs not weight, especially with a dog. I think three weeks would be no problem, longer if you have compact outfit.

Hey Sedges, thanks for sharing your experience. We're a combined weight of 300# + 40# dog + gear and food of weights yet undetermined. We like fresh foods of course, but can compromise as we build towards 21 day trips. For now we're sticking with 11 day trips and shorter.

So it's good to know that you think we can pull off a 3 weeker. This is my main concern: that 3 weeks can reasonably done by experienced wilderness canoeists.

The dog is going to need some room and that may reduce your food capacity. I tend to use a duffel with no straps or even a heavy duty stuff sack that I carry on top of the regular pack. It rests there comfortably against the back of my neck and stays put without having a hand on it. Something like that would fit under the bow seat. If the stern seat is far enough forward one could fit under or even behind it. Packing food in those so they disappear as the trip proceeds. If you experiment with your space you'll figure it out.

For the most part, as you extend beyond 10 days fresh food isn't going to be fresh any more. You may find that freeze dried stuff or some homemade dehydrated stuff creeping into your diet.

Really the only difference between a 3 day and 30 day trip is food (& tp, especially if you cook with wood). A prospector will carry pretty much what you can fit in it. The canoe will carry more than what you want to portage. I would think a month is not unreasonable.

That's an excellent point about the only difference being food weight. I've also just had an offer of a used Penobscot 17'RX. I'm thinking the extra foot might be particularly welcomed with the dog in tow.

18’ chestnut prospector, the real deal. My seventy-five pound dog takes up half of it.

I have a 60# dog that weighs #70s. :)

Found my Penobscot 17RX :-) It was hard to let go of the Propector after researching it, but, in the end, that extra foot is gonna serve us well I think.

You know where that extra foot is? Right in the middle ( is the widest point).