My Ideal Solo canoe?

David

– Last Updated: Nov-08-12 1:06 PM EST –

I think that you, I, Bob, and Rich should start a boat exchange club and circulate canoes among ourselves at semiannual intervals.

As an added plus, Bob and I are now of an age that by the time a boat makes its way back to us we will have forgotten that we ever owned it, and it will be as if brand new.

That would sure save me a lot of money
and storage space. Too bad we live so far apart.



I you retired folk did the transporting, we might be able to make it work.

RapidFire, kneeling
I also paddle a RapidFire with a bench seat mounted as high as possible. I usually kneel or “half-kneel” (one leg forward, foot on the footbrace). I like the boat, though it is not as nimble as my WildFire and the freeboard in the middle is a little low for me on the windblown Hudson.



Turtle, I paddled the boat up and down the Oswegatchie a couple of years ago, with a backpacking-style pack and a few odds and ends. I made good time in the turns, especially on the way back down! I heeled the boat to the outside of every turn, but not nearly to the rail. It is true that I needed to secure my pack to prevent it from shifting during a heel and surprising me.



Yanoer, when you say you paddled a RapidFire with a high seat, do you mean the highest kayak-style seat, or a bench, canoe-style seat? I don’t find the RapidFire a particularly lively boat on the rare occasions I use it as a deckless kayak, but it heels nicely when I can use my knees to make my intentions clear.



If I had my dream canoe, it would have the nimbleness of the WildFire (hence fuller and less asymmetrical than the RF), at least the forward speed of the RapidFire, and a deck. A 16-foot, 26-inch, symmetrically rockered, asymmetrically flared, decked WildFire – that would attract my interest! For now, I settle for a RapidFire with float bags, but I continue to hope.



Mark

'twas a medium height seat in the Rapid
that I paddled a few days ago - basically a couple inches off the bottom - very low center of gravity.

turneyness
I have paddled that portion of the Oss(one of my favorite paddles) either with the traverse or up and back in; 2 Flashfires,Swift Osprey,Bell Merlin II,Savage River Wee lassie,and a Stowe 16’tanden-solo. They all did it,but the Flashfires loved it and want to go back. Actually,the ADK the trip starting on windy open Little Tupper lake through to to and down the twisty Osswagochie is just the kind of trip where I wish for this dream boat. Here’s a idea. What about a nice narrow turney boat with a small lite simple extendable skeg? Not a rudder, and with composites and ingenuity it could be lite and fold away discretly or even be removable for the twisty sections. It could be alongside the stern so the hull could be un modified.

Turtle

Over/on the stern skeg?
My new to me Easy Ryder Dolphin yak has a simple over the stern skeg and like it so far. Thin metal (yak rudder-like) blade in a simple frame, wider at the bottom than top so its counter balanced and deployed by its weight from a line to a small flat cockpit jam cleat - very simple. Down it tracks very straight on all points of wind, up very maneuverable, in between can be tuned as you like. Simple to remove too. Could bend it though if stern kisses a rock hard. Thinking about making one for my UL canoe. Just thoughts, R

Wouldn’t work Pete

– Last Updated: Nov-09-12 10:49 AM EST –

Yanoer would try to hustle us into finding & buying only canoes he wants to "test paddle" for a day or two.

He'd want you to transport it to his house; freshly cleaned & polished. You unload it, and put it up on a rack for him.
When he was finished with it; you'd have to go back to his place, take it off the rack, load it back on your vehicle, and take it back home. Yeah, it would be filthy from paddling in those corn field ditches & city sewer lagoons.

Unless, of course, he thought your canoe was the "cat's meow"; in which case he would offer you about 1/3 of what you paid for it. Ask if he could finance it for 72 months? Then ask for a new paddle as "boot"; with a money back return on the paddle if he finds it 1 ounce too heavy or too light, or 1/4 inch too long or too short, to suit his taste.

Dave's lives in a wet dream. In the dream he's a multimillionaire; owns every metal flaked, streamlined, candy coated, most lusted after solo canoes between 12 and 16 feets that were ever produced. He'd have a full time staff of on call/24 hour a day/ "gophers" to load, unload, and clean his boats. The gophers, "ex hooter girls", would also act as shuttle bunnies. He'd have a full time gear consultant/buyer, and a chef to pack his lunch. A master cabinet maker, on call to make any necessary 1/8 inch canoe seat, or thwart adjustments. A full time researcher to seek holy grails, and a full time custom made trailer truck w/crew to pick them up. He'd wear one off, custom tailored, test paddling outfits.
Boat & paddle designers would do some major "sucking up" & "kowtowing" whenever Dave appeared.

I don't care what everybody else says about
Dave behind his back. Dave's ok; he just lives in a wet dream.

:^)
BOB

P.S. Actually, having ex Hooter's girls as shuttle bunnies, might not be such bad an idea after all.
Might have to work harder on convincing my wife about that; she ain't bought into that yet!

Since Mitt bit the bullet; I guess the possibility of my wife & I getting a tall, nubile, 19 year old, blonde, as a "sister wife" is a mute point.

Never hurts to dream; just ask Dave!

Bob, you know me so well!
That description was way too well detailed to be only my wet dream :slight_smile:

So Yanoer is a hustler?
I never would have guessed it. But it takes one to know one, as they say.



If he is as you say he is, I am surprised he has not asked us to accompany him on paddling excursions, each of us towing 3 or 4 different boats behind us, so that he could change craft as conditions and his mood dictated.

That is a fabulous idea!
I’m glad you suggested it.



Sweet!



Thank you!

I suggest…

– Last Updated: Nov-09-12 1:17 PM EST –

Alternative idea: We each choose one canoe, use whatever paddling skills we lack/posses to adapt to the positive/negative attributes of that canoe choice.

Put in at Cedar Grove on the Current river & lollygag downstream to Doniphan, Missouri. It's a piddling 116 miles; good test paddle distance.
We might hate our canoe choice, but would probably have a good time suffering, and "endeavouring to perservere".
Might even recruit a couple of more masochists to tag along with us.

Brian, Duggae, Terry, Rpd, Pat C, Rambling Jack, et al; you masochists out there somewhere lurking?

Name suitable date; I'm good to go...........

BOB

Better yet, draw lots for boat selection
and deal with whatever boat chance selects for us :slight_smile:

I’m game
As long as everybody who goes agrees that we put in at least 20 miles a day. Five nights in a row of sleeping on gravel bars is as much as I can do.



We can call it the “Bob Challenge”.

Or
if we can get a half dozen people for a six day trip, we could stipulate that everyone has to paddle a different boat each day.



Of course, that could degenerate into a contest to see who could inflict the most misery on their fellow paddlers by bringing the most hideous canoe.

Sorry I propose 55 miles a day
and camp on a gravel bar most every night. It is quite enjoyable. I am thinking of doing the Yukon from Lake Bennett to Dawson or Circle in 2013 solo.



We just did Johnsons Crossing to Dawson City in 2012.



I am game…are you?

I have some thoughts on a drop skeg
with a trailing wishbone frame hinged on the gunwales. I’ve wanted to do it for our traveling solo/tandem, our 15’ highly rockered MR Synergy. It is a very cranky tandem, and when I take my spouse out on a lake below the Tetons, a drop skeg would allow the hull to proceed more efficiently.



But even on easy whitewater, a skeg in a box similar to those in sea kayaks would leave the stern of a composite canoe very vulnerable to ledge damage. The beauty of a drop skeg is that it can be knocked up out of the way by rocks and ledges, and there’s no skeg box to be damaged.



Usually I have to think about such a thing for a year or two, and suddenly it exists and works. I hope.

GRB Rambler , PB Rapidfire
Hi Turtle

I bought a new Newman designs Rambler this April . Have not been able to paddle it yet .

Also have a Rapidfire since we have last paddled . If you want to paddle either of these . Drop me a line .

J White

No
I’m fine with 30 mile day trips if there is at least a little current, and I’m sure I could go 40 if I had too but beyond that is not enjoyable.



Of course, if you have a 7-8 knot current and a decent boat you can knock off 55 miles on an unobstructed river in 5 hours of steady paddling.

Paddle that Rambler so I can get some
feedback on it. Looks like a neat little boat.

why vulnerable?
I hadn’t thought about the possibility that a skeg box would make the stern more vulnerable in whitewater than it would otherwise be. You mean because the skeg box locally stiffens the hull? Or do you mean that the hull itself would be okay but the skeg box would be damaged by impact transmitted through the hull?



Mark