Made in New Hampshire

[Onshore]

I always wanted to own a Merrimack Canoe. Growing up in Gloucester in the 50's and 60's the first one I saw was owned by a neighbor who used it almost exclusively for fishing our reservoirs and ponds for L.M. Bass.

When I lived in New Hampshire, I saw quite a few more but I was in the process of raising six kids and couldn't afford one. I had to settle for a 12' Grummon aluminum. I used that to fish remote ponds all over NH and ME; but I longed for a Merrimack.

I retired to Cape Cod in 2004 and moved down here to Florida in 2007. With lots of time, I spend a goodly portion of it fishing the Indian River and Mosquito Lagoons and Banana River - especially the no motor zone in the Merritt Island Wildlife Sanctuary. Great fishing for large Redfish(Drum), Black Druum, Sea Trout, Snook and Jack Crevelle. Of course, the king of the lagoon is the Baby Tarpon some of which will reach 100 lbs. but which probably average 20-25 lbs. Most of my fishing is done wading from a 12.5' Heritage Kayak but, I still wanted a Merrimack canoe. Then I found it.

Therese and I were exploring a new stretch of rumored to be fine water for Snook and Tarpon and had pulled out of the Indian River Lagoon on the shores of what turned out to be a grapefruit grove.
While eating sandwich I noticed seomething under a palm tree, covered by a tarp, that looked like a kayak or canoe. The tarp was held down by four cement blooks so, I lifted a couple and peeled it back. There it was! A Merrimack "Osprey" and a real old one. Turns out to have been made in 1967 in Reed's Ferry. And here's it's history, direct from the Merrimack Canoe web site.

The original wood-reinforced fiberglass hull was developed by L.H. Beach more than 53 years ago. He grew up in Maine and moved to Merrimack, NH where he started the company. When fiberglass started to be used in boat building, he didn't like the looks of the all fiberglass hulls. He came up with the idea of combining tradition with the new fiberglass technology. So he made a thin fiberglass hull and instead of reinforcing it with fiberglass he used wood ribs one-sixteenth inch thick. This gave the hull the stiffness it needed with less weight and great looks. This is where he came up with the slogan, "The fiberglass canoe that looks like a canoe."

In 1967, Doris and Lem Beach, took over the company and started building the canoes when Dad retired from the Navy. They built canoes in Merrimack until the fall of 1972 when they moved to Crossville, Tennessee.

Although today they use modern composite materials for our hulls, we build Merrimack canoes basically the same way L.H. Beach did. Being third generation Merrimack Craftsman, they are very picky about the details.

The short of it is that we found the owner and made an offer he accepted. We hauled it up to my son's in Melbourne and have worked on it the past month and now have a like-new Merrimack 12'6" Ospre. The original design of L.H. Beach. Now for the lagoon.

[Merrillizer™]

That's wicked. I really miss canoein' tha rivers here. This post brought back some good memories of summers past!

[47onthewall]

Glad you found your "dream boat" Bill. While I can enjoy the look of a nice canoe being paddled across the water me and canoes don't mix. Have to stand up in a boat now and then or killer leg cramps ensue. Happy paddling