The PaddlerUK magazine December 2015 issue 5 | Page 6

PADDLERUK 6

Hurley Wier
Photo by
Antony Edmonds

And the craft they built him, 15ft (4.6m) long by
2ft 6in (76cm) wide in cedar planking on oak
frames and weighing about 35kg (77lb), was
paddled in a sitting position by a double-bladed
paddle or propelled by a small lugsail, in which
instance the paddle was put to use as a rudder,
but with a very large, open cockpit, such that you
might have to debate whether it was, in fact, a
canoe or kayak.
Photo:
Rob Roy’s canoe at
the Pyranha stand at
the ICF Slalom
World
Championships at
Lee Valley.
Photo: Peter Tranter

It was in essence, according to David Lawrence
of the Royal Canoe Club, a mixture of skiff,
canoe and kayak, although we’ll refer to it as a
kayak here. Compared to the kayaks of today,
many of which will fit in the back of a hatchback
if you fold the backseats down, it was enormous,
although it would have been considered minute
at the time. It was, in fact, of a

size calculated by MacGregor to fit inside the
guard vans of trains for ease of transportation.
And so he set off, in the summer of 1865, down
the Thames, across the English Channel and into
the waterways of Europe for 1,000 miles of
placid water touring. The following year, he
published his first book – 1,000 Miles in the Rob
Roy Canoe – and it sold 2,000 issues in five days.

Royal Canoe Club

That same year, 1866, he established the world’s
first canoeing club, the Royal Canoe Club in
Teddington, just west of London on the Thames,
which is still active to this day. And the craze
exploded almost immediately