I do a race in the spring on an extremely winedy river. I have been using a 14 foot dagger kayak and have to work the corners extremely hard. One section of 5 km that the corners are almost 160 degrees. Almost coming back on itself. So many places a Canoeist can just skip out and skip the Canoe and cut off hundreds of meters everywhere. Being in a tight kayak makes it not worth while to try and get out and save time as the bow hits the shore and if you get out your still in 4 feet of water. How fast is a phoenix vagabond poke. Compared to a race canoe? And is this phoenix very wide.? Can it be paddled as a kayak? I can paddle my 14 foot dagger at 9 kmph for close to one hour as average
You are asking for experience/advice on a very, very old boat. I hope there is someone here with direct experience, but that universe of people is very, very small at this point. And I assume you mean Phoenix Vagabond / Poke Boat.
Had a Phoenix Poke Boat for a while, very wide, very slow. They were great for hunting or fishing as they were very stable and lightweight in kevlar for long portages. If I recall, it was 12 feet long by 30 inches wide. Phoenix also made a Vagabond model that was 16.5 feet long, but that would be worse in the situations you describe.
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I had a 16 ft vagabond K2. It was a very fast boat for general river running and light whitewater (I<II). I used to paddle it as a K1 from the front seat and that worked well and was very stable. I would occasionally have it on rivers in flood that were at 30,000 CFS.
My boat did not have a rudder and was not good in extremely tight corners. It still easily out turned people in canoes. If it had a rudder I am sure that it would do much better and that would also apply to the short version.