C is for Canoes - 1 - Introduction

Voyagers Canoe - image origin unknown

 

So, this has been building for sometime now, and I can't remember if Brian Berke started it or answered a call, but back in the Autumn of 2020 he sent me a shed-load of stuff on Western canoes, which got me digging out and shooting mine.

 

Then something happened and it all went on hold, then Mum passed away, then time, then I posted something else, then I ran out of time again, then I lost my Mojo, then my Brother, then HMRC, then HMCTS, then I posted something else, yada, yada, and, and, and . . . they're here now!

 

This is Brian's 'sizer', we'll be looking at all these and more over a series of, err, about 22 posts? Which with real life and other stuff will get us pretty much to RTM, given I will alternate with other posts, so you don't get Canoe'd out!

Also, because it was a while ago that the notes were taken, Brian may have to correct the odd detail as we go! So, from left running down the column, then the right, we have;

• Don't know! Big, polystyrene.
  
• Hong Kong copy of Britains trapper/2nd type
• Dulcop
• MPC
• Timpo 2-berth
• Hong Kong 
  
• Hong Kong Knick Knack 1-berth 

-

• Post Giant 25mm figures with 6-berth canoe
• Not sure, I think it's the Cherilea/Dorset re-issue?
• Star Toys copy of Timpo 2-berth
• Tim Mee
  
• Hong Kong loosely based on Herald/Briains 1st type
• Hong Kong Knick Knack 3-berth

My storage sample, it has since received all the ones here and gone back to storage (as have the Totem poles been reunited and shipped off again, so we'll look at them again in a year or two!) We did manage to look at the rafts a while ago - they were supposed to be the opener to this season!

The pale one on its side is similar to Brian's dark one, two from the bottom in the right-hand column of his photo, see also below. It's a basic line-up, to which I haven't added that many, a few HK ones and the copy raft seen previously.
 

One of my Sizers;

• Supreme copy of Britains trapper/2nd type
• Copy of Supreme, even down to decoration!
• Hong Kong  copy of Britains trapper/2nd type
• Hong Kong loosely based on Herald/Briains 1st type
• Hong Kong rack-toy rubbish (Rado, Hing Fat, a lesser brand?)

You can see how that pale one is more like a theme-park canoe, with smooth [aluminium] sides, and the trashy one is very loosely based on the Britains trapper/2nd type

Another, from the left and working up to the right;

• Beeju
• Junk one
  
• 'Theme park' one
  
• Herald/Briains 1st type
• Hong Kong copy of Britains trapper/2nd type
• Timpo 4-berth

Two of Brian's with his idyllic little island, which will reappear through these posts and serves as a further sizer/scale guide, here a Hong Kong copy of the Britains 2nd type which I'll be calling the 'Trapper' as I think that's when it first appeared, however by the end it was the only version still in production . . . during the Deetail years. Behind it, the pink Hong Kong one, it's actually quite dinky, but more of a hollowed log . . . for Amazonian Indians!

 

Here we see the 3-berth 'knick-knack', the previous two and a Timpo 2-berth, the Timpo look like they might be on dodgy ground here, he's drawn his knife and the other three boats are rather bearing-down on them!

 

Brian's blue one [is Dulcop] loosely based on Britains 1st version, but with a bowed hull, it has the stars on the prow (or stern here!), a detail Timpo also sort of copied, so the first post will be the Britains family as many of the others come-off them, although there were many metal, wood, US plastic and probably a few Hong Kong novelty ones (like the Knick Knacks) which predate the Herald, but we are looking predominantly at the plastics, and it's a starting point!

Ah, yes . . . if you're really lucky, you might find someone in the Deep South selling their exclusive Terricata canoes! Say it like you heard it dude (or dudess?), Google is obviously for 'woke' pussies! Somebody give them fifty-bucks, they've probably got a jacked pick-up truck to feed!