About

Cherish your time on the water.

Placid Boatworks began in 2004 as a joint venture between Charles Wilson and Joe Moore. Driven by an insatiable desire to create the finest pack boats Adirondack waterways have ever seen… the idea was to give the pack canoe a makeover in both design, materials, and even construction methodology. With help from prolific paddlecraft designer, David Yost, the SpitFire was born. Unlike the Henry Rushton pack canoes of yore and their many modern-material copies, Placid Boatworks offered a modern, kayak-like, asymmetrical hull design with differential rocker and sheer, as well shouldered tumblehome. All of these features, together with Placid’s vacuum assisted resin transfer molding process of aramid and graphite fibers, made the 12’ SpitFire the most sophisticated pack canoe ever built. Stoutly built hulls with feather-like weights and incredible performance were the result.