Last month I was on Facebook and saw that a friend was selling a RX Outrage. The boat was in like-new condition with new gunnels and outfitting, and hardly a scratch on the hull itself. I snapped it up right away. I’ve had it out on flatwater a few times since, and have been looking forward to getting it out on some real whitewater - that finally this weekend at Westfest.
As we got in line for the shuttle on the class III section, others were already lining up for a second run. The West is a series of long wavetrains with lots of playspots if you are so inclined. The new Outrage felt a little twitchy at first, but soon settled down. It does a great job of bouncing over waves, but I found that I needed to hold the lean longer on eddy turns and peal outs.
Running the Dumplings
We ended up doing four runs the upper section for the day. I added a few scratches to break the boat in, and I think this boat and I are going to get along just fine!
@daggermat said:
what kind of varnish did you use on that hull? Thinking a future at Newport Shipyard is in your future. That sure is shiny!
Has a few more scratches in it now. The boat sat unused in the seller’s basement for about 15-years. She had new gunnels and outfitting put on it, but then decided to sell it and buy a Millbrook Rayge. I was happy to take it off her hands.
Don’t know about that - I take the easy lines and portage anything I’m not comfortable with. Because I’m usually the only open boater with a bunch of kayakers they give me a pass - they probably just don’t want to have recover my swamped canoe if I swim.
I saw a couple of cars headed east this last wknd going to Bennington - was thinking they may be coming back from Westfest. I haven’t been in some years but the photos look like I remember, hardly an uncrowded run. It was a wonderful review of the history of WW/mix use kayaks, just about everything shows up on the water.
Congratulations on the new boat, and on having a great time!
Nice looking boat. The Outrage is a cool whitewater canoe. It is an inch narrower at the waterline than a Dagger Encore, so it will feel a bit twitchy in comparison.
@pblanc said:
Nice looking boat. The Outrage is a cool whitewater canoe. It is an inch narrower at the waterline than a Dagger Encore, so it will feel a bit twitchy in comparison.
It is a fun boat. I did find that I had to hold the lean longer during eddy turns and ferries - if I flattened out too soon it would catch. I had a couple of close calls and almost went over. Other than that was is a blast. It rides the waves great and seems dryer than my old Encore. I still had to pull over to empty the boat - just not as often.
It’s funny - back in the day I would have been considered too big for this boat. They made the Outrage X for guys like me. Don’t know why - even at my weight it’s fast, turns on a dime, and rides the waves. Based on today’s standards its still an old school boat, but its a blast.
The Outrage does not have that “bubble” on the side of the hull center like the Encore and does not heel quite the same, I find. Youd did better than I did. The first time I paddled an Outrage it was not the MRC production model but Tom Foster’s kevlar prototype of the Outrage, which he called “Fluidity”. MRC had just put the boat in production that year, I believe the spring of 1995.
My wife and I went up to Tom’s place on the Millers Falls River for a few days of instruction with him. I was in an Encore and she was in an Impulse. Tom wanted me to try his boat so we swapped. I was out of it in about 3 minutes.
@pblanc said:
The Outrage does not have that “bubble” on the side of the hull center like the Encore and does not heel quite the same, I find. Youd did better than I did. The first time I paddled an Outrage it was not the MRC production model but Tom Foster’s kevlar prototype of the Outrage, which he called “Fluidity”. MRC had just put the boat in production that year, I believe the spring of 1995.
In his “Solo Open Whitewater Canoeing” DVD he paddles a composite Outrage made by Bell that he calls an “Outraged”.
Millbrook makes a composite version of the Outrage - I’m gong to get one eventually…
There were only a few Outraged boats made by Bell. I have heard variously that there were between 4 and 6. Mad River Canoe had the rights to the hull design, but when approached by Tom Foster they declined to build a composite version. They did permit Bell to build a few but they were never built for retail sale to the public.
I have a friend in Pennsylvania who acquired one of the few. Unfortunately, it had made a trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and had acquired a few cracks, being constructed partially of carbon fiber. I don’t know if he still has it and I never got to paddle it.
Tom Foster was quite aggravated with Kay Henry of MRC because she elected to put synthetic gunwales that had been designed for another boat on “his canoe”. These were not preshaped and tended to reduce the flare of the Outrage at the ends making for a wetter boat. The wood gunwaled Outrages have always been more highly regarded partly for that reason.
Great find, Erik, and I have some questions. But pardon me as I first indulge in some nostalgia.
“The scenery of Switzerland. The population of India. The West.”
That’s how I ended my description of the fall West Weekend trip in the 1986 AMC magazine. No one made more than two runs in those days because the crowds were so large that the shuttle wait was about and hour and a half.
Maybe this is more common now, but then I was the only one running the Dumplings this way: You can run an easy slot all the way on river right and eddy out. Then you can ferry over to the big Dumpling rocks and jet ferry back and forth between them, while watching out for the steady stream of boaters shooting through the normal left-center line. This would please the crowds on shore, who thought it sophisticated or difficult paddling, which it really isn’t.
I’d be interested in your comparison of the Outrage to the Encore in terms of weight capacity, initial stability, secondary stability, turnability and acceleratability.
The Outrage was designed by Tom Foster. (Is he still around?) I purchased my Encore from Tom in 90 or 91 and he personally outfitted it, including sculpting a beautiful pedestal with a wraparound backrest and hip blocks, made out of different colored layers of minicell.
Last time I spoke to Tom (several years ago) he was no longer doing whitewater instruction, but was still introducing people to whitewater in a shedder.
There was a time in the early 1990s when the Dagger Encore was far and away my favorite whitewater OC-1 and I really never foresaw paddling anything else. Tom Foster had been a big Encore fan as well, and after hearing him brag up the Outrage, I kept my eyes open for a used one in good condition, and finally found a wood gunwaled model and still have it. By that time, however, I had discovered the virtues of sharp chined boats like the Vipers and Ocoee and had gravitated to those designs, so I probably never paddled the Outrage enough to develop a good feel for its capabilities.
The Encore was a 4 meter boat (approx. 13’ 2") like many other whitewater boats of that vintage, so that it could compete in the Royalex class in whitewater OC-1 slalom when 4 meters was still the minimum length requirement. The Outrage was 12’ in length overall, but put even less of its LOA into the water than the Encore did so its effective waterline length was much less. It was also an inch narrower at the waterline. Hopefully these photos will demonstrate:
The Outrage having much less waterline length and being a bit narrower to boot felt “quicker” to accelerate from a standing stop, but given padddlers of equal size, strength, and ability I have little doubt that the Encore would win a downriver race against the Outrage.
Having such a short waterline length, the Outrage would flat spin very quickly. It always felt less forgiving to me than the Encore, especially in secondary stability. That is probably partly due to my lesser degree of familiarity with it. But I also always felt that my knees in the Outrage were a little closer together than I liked, even when they were as far out it the chines as they would go.
Although I know some paddlers who claimed the Outrage was easy to roll (Jim Michaud included) I never found it as easy to roll as the Encore. The Encore however was one of the easiest open boats to roll IMO. The Outrage with its extreme rocker was reluctant to submerge those high ends in the water when they held float bags. In a capsize to the off-side (which is the more common occurrence for we single-bladers) the boat tended to want to hang up sideways on its off-side and was difficult to rotate 180 degrees even with a strong underwater sweep.
I paddled an Outrage X; a buddy paddled an Outrage.
I’d paddle the X for many years, and I’d paddled it a lot. It could handle some good sized water, and wasn’t too bad on flat water pools either. I thought it was more forgiving than the Outrage. My buddy was always wanting to switch boats with me; especially when we hit the doldrums.
The Outrage was not a lot of fun on long pools, but it certainly was more manueverable than the X.
I kept the X and bought an Outrage, but it didn’t take me long to discover the Outrage it was pretty “twitchy” in comparion to the X. I gasped in a lot more places in the Outrage than I did the X.
I kept the X and sold the Outrage…
I own a Dagger Encore; like to paddle it whenever I can.
Also own & enjoy paddling my Mad River Fantasy
@pblanc said:
Tom Foster was quite aggravated with Kay Henry of MRC because she elected to put synthetic gunwales that had been designed for another boat on “his canoe”. These were not preshaped and tended to reduce the flare of the Outrage at the ends making for a wetter boat. The wood gunwaled Outrages have always been more highly regarded partly for that reason.
I have the wood gunwales, and it was a relatively dry ride on the West, which has lots of long wave trains. Millbrook makes a composite version of the Outrage that is popular around here with folks who are looking for a bigger boat. I’d like to buy one sometime. I have the RX and composite versions of the Wildfire, so maybe I will on the Outrage too.
@Glenn MacGrady said:
That’s how I ended my description of the fall West Weekend trip in the 1986 AMC magazine. No one made more than two runs in those days because the crowds were so large that the shuttle wait was about and hour and a half.
Still pretty crowded – especially on Saturday. We waited in the shuttle line about 30 minutes for the first morning run, about 45 minutes for the second morning run, and 10 – 15 minutes for the two afternoon runs. On Sunday there is no line, but you sometimes need to wait for the shuttle to fill up. $25 for a day ticket on the shuttle, and worth every penny.
Maybe this is more common now, but then I was the only one running the Dumplings this way: You can run an easy slot all the way on river right and eddy out. Then you can ferry over to the big Dumpling rocks and jet ferry back and forth between them, while watching out for the steady stream of boaters shooting through the normal left-center line. This would please the crowds on shore, who thought it sophisticated or difficult paddling, which it really isn’t.
I have never taken the right line through the Dumplings, but the Millbrook posse posted some pictures on Facebook with runs through the right side. I’ll have to try it sometime.
I’d be interested in your comparison of the Outrage to the Encore in terms of weight capacity, initial stability, secondary stability, turnability and acceleratability.
I haven’t had a lot of time in the boat yet, but I don’t think my weight (220 lbs.) is an issue. The boat spins on a dime. The only real difference from my Encore is that I find that I need to hold the lean a little longer on strong eddy lines or it grabs. It surprised me a couple of times.
The Outrage was designed by Tom Foster. (Is he still around?) I purchased my Encore from Tom in 90 or 91 and he personally outfitted it, including sculpting a beautiful pedestal with a wraparound backrest and hip blocks, made out of different colored layers of minicell.
When I bought my Encore it had the a matching multi-colored minicell pedestal and horse-collar hip blocks. I thought the pedestal was too low, so I ripped it all out and replaced it with Mike Yee outfitting with a taller pedestal. Had I known is was outfitted by Tom Foster, maybe I would have kept it.
@jester42 said:
I paddled an Outrage X; a buddy paddled an Outrage.
I’d paddle the X for many years, and I’d paddled it a lot. It could handle some good sized water, and wasn’t too bad on flat water pools either. I thought it was more forgiving than the Outrage. My buddy was always wanting to switch boats with me; especially when we hit the doldrums.
The Outrage was not a lot of fun on long pools, but it certainly was more manueverable than the X.
I kept the X and bought an Outrage, but it didn’t take me long to discover the Outrage it was pretty “twitchy” in comparion to the X. I gasped in a lot more places in the Outrage than I did the X.
I kept the X and sold the Outrage…
While I love my Encore, I find the Outrage to be much more maneuverable, and I haven’t found it to be particularly “twitchy”. Still, I haven’t had it out on any real technically challenging runs yet, so we’ll see.
