I’d be interested in hearing what this canoe is like? Thanks
I recommend going to cboats.net and
asking as many thoughtful and specific questions as you can.
I can tell a great deal about the AC/DC from the pictures posted on millbrookboats.com, but the ability to accurately predict boat behavior from visual inspection is not easily shared.
I’m thinking of buying one. Then I could help you more.
OH! Forgot. Why are you asking? None of us can help you if all you offer us is general curiosity. What do you want a boat to do, and why do you think an AC/DC might do it?
Call Kaz and ask about it
– Last Updated: Jun-29-14 11:16 PM EST –
The late John Berry named the canoe AC/DC because he favored sexual innuendo in his boat names (Flasher, Flashback, ME) and this particular hull "goes both ways".
The AC/DC was designed as a whitewater canoe to be raced in the combined class event. It has more rocker in one end than the other. In the slalom, the more rockered end would be the bow. In the downriver event, the less rockered end would be the bow. The original seats were double-sloped kneeling thwarts in the Gemini position.
The best source of information on the boat would be from the guy who now makes them, John Kazimierczyk. He has a phone and is very helpful.
I was not
Looking for a hull to meet a specific need, but more interested in what the hull was designed for and how well it does it.
Thanks
for the info Glen
Well, pardon me for have a more than
casual interest in the AC/DC, but I own two Millbrooks, and ownership can affect the mind.
Wonderful fellow that he is, Kaz does not have the services of a photographer who can consistently show the proportions of his boats. In an earlier version of his website catalog, a powder blue AC/DC was pictured, and it appeared to have no discernible rocker at all. Which seemed unlikely, but there it was.
In the later, current web catalog, the AC/DC has quite a bit of rocker, compared, say, to the general run of lake cruisers. Yet Kaz minimizes the amount of rocker in his description. Elsewhere, he minimizes the amount of rocker of the Coho, a canoe designed by Ed Hayden for poling, but the photograph shows considerable rocker.
So it’s all very well to talk to Kaz on the phone, but if you’re serious about buying a Millbrook, find an owner of the model you fancy, and either go there and paddle the boat, or have the owner send you pictures. That’s what I did when I ended up choosing the Big Boy over the Fat Boy.
My interest in the AC/DC is that it is a pocket tandem, fairly fast by virtue of narrow beem and roundish cross section, and rockered enough to be agile. And, with my considerable height and leverage, I can paddle it solo. Offhand, I don’t know another canoe that has good speed and very good handling. But opinions vary.
First I have to sell a boat or two…
but can I harvest rice with it?
Kaz could direct one to owners
Maybe you can find some on Cboats, but other than that, how does one locate an AC/DC owner? It’s a pretty old and obscure boat, which probably never sold that well compared to other Berry/Kaz models.
Berry’s AC/DC’s in the 80’s definitely had the differential rocker I described. I paddle with, but not in, them many times. It was the usual boat used by John and his then girlfriend Jan for touring and teaching as well as racing around the northeast.
Today, maybe most tripping and touring paddlers would just use it with the max rocker as the bow. It would probably be a good tripper – relatively fast, whitewater capable, and deep.
So, used that way, with the rocker
at the bow and the trailing “skegged” end at the rear, it might be like an early fishform like today’s Millbrook Ignitor.
Run the other way, with less rocker and perhaps a bit narrower “cut”, it would be like the Millbrook Hooter or Kyote.
My MR Synergy is normally swedeform, fatter, more rockered stern, narrower, less rockered bow. But I’ve run it the other direction, where the fatter, wider bow is easier to maneuver, while the narrower, less rockered stern just trails along cheerfully.
But the speed of the AC/DC will come from less rocker and a better length to width ratio. Shouldn’t be a super fast cruiser, but a very easy day of paddling on smooth water.
saki to me, saki to me, saki to me…
AC/DC
Where are you? I’ve got an AC/DC you could check out, if near midcoast Maine.