The Mosquito Burrito in action

My son is five, and I guess it should come as no surprise he already has a taste for canoeing.  He really likes paddling in the bow of our Octane 92, which he has dubbed “Splasher.”  He already thinks boofing and rock spins are cool.  This summer I decided I might as well get him in his own boat, so I drug the Octane 85 prototype out of the boneyard, cut it up and welded it back together again (It was originally a cut and welded Octane 91, so it’s not the first time).  He dubbed it the “Mosquito Burrito.” This is what happens when you let a 5 year old name a boat, but I kind of like it.  We had a lot of fun floating down the Pemi this summer, running his first “rapids.”

It’s not pretty, but it floats

This blog is largely about whatever happens to by on my mind any given week.  As the weather turns ever colder, and the Mosquito Burrito goes into hibernation, and things slow down around the shop, my mind has turned to the idea of actually trying to produce this thing.  Problem is… I have no idea how many I would sell.  Are there enough people looking for a kid’s canoe that it would be worthwhile for me?  There are a couple of avenues I can pursue, bur first I have to figure out the demand for it.  So I guess I’m asking who wants one?  I’m in sort of a pre-crowdfunding phase. There’s a good chance this project would be a one-shot deal.  It would either happen or not, and it might be a limited run of boats.  If you’re interested in “pre-preordering” one, please shoot me an email and I’ll put you on the list to keep updated if/when the project moves forward.

A cleaner concept version of the Mosquito Burrito with a Condor for scale.

Obviously, there are a lot of questions to answer here and I’ll try to anticipate some.  Price I’m hoping would be in the $900 range (plus or minus $100?).  Outfitting would be extremely basic.  A foam saddle with no bulkhead.  I’ve found this works really well, as it makes it easy to fall out if the boat does flip.  A bulkhead could be added as an option or at a later time.  It’ll also include kneepads, thwarts, and airbag lacing.  I’d say the weight range would be up to about 100lbs.  I’d ballpark the boat to be about 7’4″ long and 24″ wide and weigh about 30lbs.

So, what do you think?