The impact suffered by your boat when you dropped it is many times less than what might be suffered on the water with you in it and the force of flowing water and/or wind driving you against a staionary object.

: Wow, glad you escaped relatively unscathed. I take it that the
: upstream gunwale dipped into the river before it snapped? Or did
: the boat just split from the impact? Its kind of amazing how all
: the stringers look like they have the same length of split in
: roughly the same place, I wouldn't have called that.

: Would you build the canoe differently next time?

: (Sorry for all the questions, I just always wondered what would
: happen worst case scenario with my boat, and well, you just
: involuntarily volunteered for destructive testing)