As a DIYer, I would love to build another boat… but the wife says no more boat building. I have built several canoes, kayaks, and even a wooden runabout. So building is nothing new to me. I have even made foam boats.
One of these years I will be building another fish and ski runabout built around a 110hp outboard. But that will be after I get a garage
YES! Handmade wooden boats!
I built a 12' stich-and-glue kayak over the summer and I've been thinking about having a go at making a cedar strip OC1 (one person outrigger canoe!) sometime... Its a different beast than what you'd normally find in lakes, but I've put a bunch of years in as a steersman on a six person outrigger canoe and almost as much time paddling the things in the #3 seat, so doing an OC1 is something I'd likely get more use out of because of my proximity to the ocean.
On the other hand I have some family I might be able to talk out of an older Coleman 16' canoe one of these days... Its not high performance, or light, but it floats and it tracks well when you're solo in it and we spent a lot of time paddling that around when my brother and I were younger. But for now, the small watercraft itch has been satisfied by my stand up paddle board and the kayak we built. Both are super high performance watercraft and it shows when it comes time to work out and get a move on with them in the water. The sup is 24lbs, with a carbon fiber paddle and the kayak is 39lbs with a somewhat lower end, but more impact resistant paddle as my kid is the main user of that boat.
But back to more traditional styled canoes...
For the inflatable vs fiberglass vs carbon vs Kevlar canoe discussions, it comes down to weight, storage, performance and frequency of use, to me.
I SUP a lot and do some surfing on it, so I opted to go for a hard board for it, however inflatable SUP's have been making a huge inroad with their performance due to advances in drop stitch construction of the boards. I've seen similar advances in the construction of inflatable kayaks, with the higher performance ones having drop stitch floors, and AL frames that pack down plus the other inflate-y bits. I'm not so sure how it'd work out in canoe land where you're often looking at 2-3 people and gear in a average canoe trip and most of that load being supported in the floor. They might work out, who knows, but i don't expect them to fulfill my expectations for a paddle craft performance wise.
Road has a REALLY high performance, ultra light solo canoe that is made out of Kevlar, and its a a pretty incredible option if you have the $$ for it.
Fiberglass and plastic is still around really common, and they often give acceptable performance at the expense of being heaver and somewhat harder to move around if you're solo.
The inflatables totally win if you have storage concerns or don't need a higher performance watercraft. Electric pumps for inflatables are a thing, and make the job of inflating them fairly painless, you can use an onboard compressor as well, but you have to be very aware of over pressurizing them and blowing them up.
The kayak we built for attention:
