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August, 2005
Fran Cyr: Profiled
by Paula Lunt
What do you think of a guy with six strippers??? Canoes that is!
For the past 13 years, Fran Cyr has been building cedar strip canoes. He built his first boat in 1992. “It was an ugly whitewater racer”, he explained. “We raced it with some success and it was great in shallow water, but slow in deep water and had no volume. (It’s now a flat-water boat after I chopped down the depth). Since then I built six more strippers and have a proboat in the works. I’ve owned many canoes over the past 22 years and I’d say my favorite is a C-1 flat-water that I built from plans I purchased at Bear Mountain Boats. Actually, I built two of them, one is more rockered, for buoy turns and twisty streams, while the other tracks, but doesn’t turn”.
Fran enjoys building boats. “There is nothing like the satisfaction you get from racing something you built yourself. There are faster boats out there, but I’ve saved thousands of dollars by building my own. Some of the boats are a combination of my design and lines I’ve lofted off other canoes. My first canoe I drew 100% myself. To date I’ve sold only one of my cedar canoes because I didn’t use it anymore. I build a maximum of one canoe a year in the winter. I don’t keep track of how long it takes, it’s just TV time!”
As a youth/teenager, Fran was not a competitive athlete. “I always enjoyed boats and often took the family’s 20’ wood and canvas Old Town Guide out paddling to explore, but it wasn’t until 1982 that my roommate Dave Buzzell and I decided to do a race.” They finished 4th in their class. A year later, he talked co-worker Steve Gudreau into doing a race. This time they finished 3rd in their division. In May of that year, Fran bought a Wenonah Jensen 18 Stock boat. “John Cronin, the guy I bought the boat from, told us to lean in the boat to help it turn. We forgot to ask which way and leaned it like a powerboat…that didn’t work. We got beat pretty good. It took a couple of years for us to become competitive in the stock class”.
Through the years Fran has raced with many partners. “I used to race with my wife Carol before we got married and had kids”. He also raced for many years with Carol’s brother Jim Park. “Jim and I can read each others minds in a canoe, you know the kind of partner.”
In recent years, Fran has been racing mostly C-1 because of the lack of interest in Northern Aroostook County. “Hopefully that is going to change this season as more people, mostly skiers, are expressing an interest in canoe racing.” Fran has started a paddle night on Wednesdays. Most of the participants are cross-country skiers using paddling for core strength training. Last summer, three Maine Winter Sports Center Athletes, who compete on a National level, started paddling with Fran as part of their training.
And when Fran is not paddling, he is enjoying cross-country skiing and mountain biking. “Cross country skiing really took off about 4 years ago here in the County. We also have plenty of ATV trails to mountain bike on.”
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