I can't comment on the Colden canoes etc. My review is only of boats I have owned. I have made no comments that the Fire series is no good etc. I have only compared the royalex YS solo I owned to the osprey.
These are my opinions based on what I have owned and my personal opinions which are as objective as possible.
I am sure that the Colden fire series are great...but when comparing the royalex YS solo to other boats I have paddled those are my conclusions...not as fast or maneuverable as the Osprey, faster than the Guide and better tracking but not as maneuverable.
And unlike her comment I did not write this to show that I have paddled a lot of boats. I am trying to share information with others that I have learned through a lot of time and testing. Maybe it will be helpful to someone else and others have actually asked me to do so......
Boat nerds I just had the trip of a lifetime on the Allagash, only me and my son. I guess I could have spent the same amount of time testing boats and writing reviews. To each his own.
critics… or you could spend less time being critical of others and make everyone happier…
All this testing is done after work when most people are probably watching TV so I don’t find any of this to be wasted time. It’s just more time on the water.
And I went on several multi-day trips this year myself in several different states so in no way is my boat testing taking away from my quality time on teh water.
And…not being married I got paddling as much as I want to.
Does your wife let you do that?
Since I live on the water and have no one to answer to I generally paddle every day…and sometimes twice a day. So again, I don’t think that I am missing any good paddlign time by doing my testing and comparison.
I don’t remember where I read it but I read a review in which two good paddlers paddled the Merlin II against the Magic and traded back and forth, concluding that the Merlin II was as fast on flat water as the Magic. Paddled flat sit and switch, I believe the Merlin II would require more switches than the harder-tracking Magic and therefore be a little slower.
I find that I can get the Merlin II carving a bit and greatly reduce the frequency of switches and I suspect that I would have to paddle it this way to match a Magic. I have kept pace in the Merlin II with a good paddler in a Wenonah Prism, a boat to which the Magic is frequently compared.
As for the Royalex Yellowstone solo, I’m sure it couldn’t touch the performance of either a Bell Wildfire composite or a Colden Wildfire. I did paddle the Colden Wildfire a little in June. I can’t say I noted any great difference between it and the composite Bell Wildfire, but I didn’t paddle them back to back. Some of the free stylers thought that the Colden was subtly different from the Bell, however.
Well, discussing the relative merits of different boats is no doubt a form of mental masturbation, but it doesn’t preclude paddling.
And talking about boats is the next best thing to paddling them.
I have quite a few different boats and I like switching around. When I paddle one I haven’t been in for a while I am often pleasantly reminded of what it does particularly well.
Another “Boat Nerd” Here I have enjoyed your reviews and musings on the different solo canoes. I guess i too am a certifiable “Boat nerd” also on the quest to find that “Perfect” stable of boats. I’m certain there are many others out here that feel the same.
I can remember when my paddling consisted of a river trip a couple times a month while awaiting the next “Big trip” I was planning. But now, thanks to medical issues and expenses, those “Big trips” aren’t possible and I live for those couple of short trips a week and the opportunities to paddle different boats looking for that “Perfect canoe.”
I have thoroughly enjoyed paddling vicariously through you while you sample and muse upon different hulls. Please, keep it up! I’m certain I’m not the only “Canoe Nerd” out here that is enjoying your quest to find canoe mecca (LOL)! WW
By the way, I invite disagreement on my conclusions above and would like to hear others share their opinions, whether or not the are the same as mine.
However....just plain criticism that assumes that my methods must be flawed, that I don't know what I am talking about, or irrational statements that I could have gone on wilderness trips had I not spent so much time making mental notes about my boats I have owned are really not necessary and add no value.
The one boat you tested that I have a lot experience in is the Supernova. I think your impressions pretty much mirror mine. Except with 6" additional height, the boat doesn't feel too big for me to have good control. But I have tried to discourage others in your height range against it, you included I think. As far as not having a secondary stability point at which to rest, what I always did was tilt the boat so that my left (onside) knee was completely at the bottom of the boat. It's a great way to rest completely. But it also created a habit that didn't play well with other hulls like the Osprey. I agree with you that it is a fast boat for its class.
yeah… it’s just a little big. big enough to where I did not feel I could man handle the boat as much as I would like to when necessary.
As far as the secondary I was referring more to the fact that it doesn’t have that really well and discernable edge on which to rest. Still balances well but is not as defineable as on other boats that have harder chines.
I am getting a used Probe 13…probably will go through a bunch of whitewater boats too but that is a safe bet with which to start.
I resisted getting a true whitewater boat for a long time.
i am going to paddle Little Falls on the Potomac River with it tomorrow.
Nice Reviews Nice write ups, Matt. Seems to me if I was looking for a high-end solo canoe, that’d be a valuable set of notes. Suggest you cut and paste over to the reviews section of the web site so that people looking for user reviews will have a resource.
Not everybody has access to the water and the gumption to go paddle like you have been doing. For those of you who don’t know Matt, he paddles about every day, including winter, in the dark, and in what he calls “interesting” conditions, and what the rest of us call a gale warning. So, I’m glad you took the time to set down your observations for those of us who can’t put the hundreds of hours into comparing canoes.
I’m looking forward to Matt’s Notes on WhiteWater Boats!
Size Good point. That is very relevant to my reviews. I am 5’8 and about 200 pounds so I a pretty short and stocky build. That may have something to do with why I did not like the Wildfire as much as I thought I would have.
Size and Fit I’m conscious that height and proportions are not the same thing: some people my height are 2-3" longer in the leg… and all other things being equal, I reckon that has a BIG impact on canoe “fit” - and I’m convinced that the same hull must feel different to people who fit in a different way.
Of course, all other things are rarely equal… and seat height is one such thing. For example, I’ve taken to the 28.5" beam Flashfire despite being 6’ tall… but the seat’s mounted almost at gunwale height (came that way) and I kneel pretty high (and am comfortable sitting high on the rare occasions when I don’t kneel) - but I’ve seen smaller paddlers in Flashfires with a much lower body position and with the gunwales nearer their armpits.
Brings me to a query: what conclusions have you come to about fit through these tests of many and varied open canoes - with hugely different waterline beams.
responses… On fit…I found that for sit and switch boats that I liked the fit of the Advantage better than the Magic. It was narrower and I felt more connected to the boat and better able to get a vertical paddle.
For Kneeling boats I found that the Wildfire and Merlin were quite narrow and yielded a narrower stance for my shorter legs (I have a longer torso and shorter legs).
Then in order of width of knee spread come the Osprey, the Guide and then the Supernova. The Nova is too wide for my knees and just too wide in general.
The other boats fit okay, but are a matter of what you get used to as well.
Unfortunately though I believe that a boat’s ability to handle bigger waves and water are largely a function of volume, width and freeboard. So regardless of what fit you prefer if you want to run bigger water you need a bigger boat in my opinion.
Perfect example is that the YS solo was a very comfortable fit for me but just not big enough for class III drops and wave trains.
On the probe……well I didn’t care for it but I also didn’t give it too much of a chance. I took it on a short class III run. It was certainly more capable of handling big waves and drops than anything I had paddled before, and was more maneuverable as well with all that rocker compared to my non-whitewater boats, but I just did not feel in total control of the boat. Probably because I am not used to a true WW boat, but I did not feel in good control and was missing eddies and getting pushed around when trying to ferry, etc.
I feel in much better control of my MR Guide and it handles the water that I run so maybe I just want to stick with it for now rather than a true WW boat. Plus I just didn’t have fun paddling it like I do with the Guide.
… for a goodly while. The biggest thing I had to get used to when jumping in my first WW boat was how to apply power without turning the boat. My guess is that’s what you were contending with too. It takes a while.
I'll tell you what: I've gleaned enough info about the original poster, from people who actually paddle with him on a regular basis, to conclude that his interest in boat performance is hardly causing him to miss out on quality time on the water. I'd be pretty confident he's "enjoying" more time on the water than a lot of us. And if he "enjoys" paying attention to how each boat moves and maneuvers, does that mean that the guy in the sun-deformed Coleman must be more admirable as a paddler or something?
Bravo! All of what you said here (and the previous post) is just way too obvious, but “obviously” it needed to be “clarified”, and you hit the nail on the head when you did it. In any case, I’ll take a hundred positive, enthusiastic posts like yours over any and all posts from a person who, if memory serves, has never posted for any purpose except to tell others that they are wrong or uninformed (or that they aren’t truly hard-core, or that they don’t get way out into the boondocks, or that they don’t actually paddle very far, and so on and so on). I really enjoy your brand of enthusiasm, and I’ve picked up quite a few tidbits about boats I have never paddled too. Don’t stop being a boat nerd. I like it.