I just picked up a 1981 Wenonal WWC1. This is the third one I have owned but the last 2 were in the late 70'3 early 80's. For me this is a wet entry exit boat as are most of my solos. Put it in the water ,straddle it and sit. Gettin in is not the problem but getting out is not as easy as it was 30 plus years ago. No only have I gotten wider it seems I must have gotten shorter and gravity gotten stronger. I have to get in real shallow water and then it is still an effort to stand enough to walk in with out the sides banging my legs causing an ungraceful exit. It is a fairly deep boat and my question is has anyone cut down the sides of one of these and if so how much did you cut to make a difference. I can't go a whole lot without cutting into the float tanks.
I have thought about it.
I too have a Wenonah Jensen WWC1. As you surely know, that boat and the Jensen C1W were designed to be downriver racers so they have a lot of depth. The boat has insufficient rocker for a good whitewater river runner and more depth than it needs for non-whitewater or flat water tripping.
I have thought about cutting mine down but I have other boats that I would probably choose over this one for tripping at this point, so I haven’t gotten around to it. I do remember hearing about some people cutting this boat down to use as a flat water tripper years ago when there were fewer options in speedy flat water trippers that could accommodate a large load.
I also came across this thread that mentioned a cut down WWC1: http://www.bwca.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=forum.thread&threadId=281860&forumID=133&confID=1
Photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7935459@N05/sets/72157625011091808/detail/
I thought it looked pretty good. Perhaps you could contact Alan Gage through the BWCA message board for details.
Maybe raise the seat?
Is that an option, or is stability too much of a concern?
Make sure the surface of the hull sides
will allow installation of the gunwales at a lower level. On two of my deep tandems, design tricks incorporated to get the gunwales inboard of the sides have made it very difficult to lower the gunwales.