I apoligize for questioning your
knowledge of the parameters of this discussion. It almost seems to me that with CW’s explanation, more than a few boats could be described as going either way…
Shallow V bottoms offer big, flat
surfaces for the river to toss the boat around. Kind of like starting with a flat bottom, and folding in the middle.
Notice the near absence of V-bottoms on whitewater boats. But if, as in the MR Guide/Freedom Solo, you put a bit of arch in those V wings and flatten the crease to a very shallow angle, you get the handling you want.
‘s’ OK, but you seem to be working from
some old conflicts I have forgotten. Sorry I muddled the asymmetry issue. Though it seems easy to muddle and hard to clarify.
Malecite is an asymmetrical WW OC-1
Originally.
Jim Henry designed his first canoe, the Malecite, to race solo in the whitewater downriver Nationals, which he won. This win launched him, his company and the Malecite to fame and fortune.
Later this versatile hull was adapted to function as a small tandem. Downriver hulls don’t have anything like the rocker of a slalom hull, so the non-extreme ones are intrinsically adaptable to flatwater.
We have had discussions as to WHETHER and HOW symmetry/asymmetry affect handling, but WHAT those terms refer to should be uncontroversial. There are four types of symmetry/asymmetry depending on your view of the hull (no charts or slide rule necessary):
- View from above: What is the shape of the gunwale line on a canoe or the seam line on a kayak = the gunwale line.
- View from the side: What is the shape of the curve formed by the gunwales; are the bow and stern the same height = the sheer line.
- View from the side: What is the shape of the curve of the keel line; is there more rocker in the bow or stern = the rocker line.
- View from below: What is the shape of the hull’s water plane = the water line.
Theoretically, each of these four lines can be symmetrical or asymmetrical independent of each other. Practically, if the rocker line is asymmetrical so is the waterline to some degree.
Swede form and fish form refer, NOT to the widest point of the gunwale line, NOR to the widest point of the water line, but to the location of the center of buoyancy along water line. Swede form = COB aft of midships. Fish form = COB fore of midships.
It is empirically inarguable that swede form hulls are faster than symmetrical hulls or fish form hulls.
The handling differences of symmetrical vs. asymmetrical hulls can be argued, though no one, in my opinion, effectively rebutted any of Patrick Moore’s technical arguments in the long thread we had on asymmetry a couple of months ago.
If the posters here are reading their old catalogs correctly, we know the Malecite has sheer line and rocker line asymmetry. It follows as a practical matter that there should also be some degree of water line asymmetry. This would also make design sense in a downriver racing canoe.
Are any sheers symmetrical?
If not, I don’t see why that would even be part of a description.
I don’t think the description of a canoe as asymmetrical has ever referred to the sheer.
Sure
I think most wood/canvas canoes and aluminum canoes, and reproductions thereof, have symmetrical sheer lines.
I agree that if the sheer line is only one of the four lines that is asymmetrical, the canoe would generally be considered and marketed as a symmetrical canoe. The Bell/Placid/Colden Fire boats would fit this description.
Relatively
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Malecite has been redesigned/retuned several times over the years. It has grown fuller and it would make sense to add differential rocker to improve handling, but the original was a symmetrical bottom.
While Jim tweaked the boat several times, John Winters and Steve Scarborough have both been contracted to tune MRC canoes;one or both may have worked on Malecite, and both have applied differential rocker to their own boats.
Definitions of Hull Form are not exactly set in stone either. My hydrodynamic texts, Benford, Gilmer, Hoyer, Paffet, Saunders, Taylor, Van Dorn and Winters are silent on the matter, although in a magazine article John accepts both definitions. Googling Swede Form gets 5 responses indicating aft placement of the widest section, 4 for location of greatest volume. The paddlesport industry that builds our boats seems undecided, so maybe we shouldn't be too didactic ourselves.
It's interesting that the Proem and Reverie[s] are Fish-form by the location of widest section and Swede-form in having more volume aft.
The claimed speed advantage of Swede form hulls is also ephemeral; recent research indicating that symmetrical hulls are faster in deep water due to reduced wave making resistance. [Google L Lazauskas or Boat Design Forums, Hydrodynamica and Aerodynamics, Hull Asymmetry and Minimum Wave Drag for the best, current, thought[s]]
So it goes.
I’m dubious re: the differential rocker
At least for all the Malecites I have seen. Granted, a slight asymmetry might escape the eye and it may well be that in later years the rocker became asymmetrical.
Even my 1990 MRC catalog describes the hull as “asymmetrical” however, whether that is due to the sheer asymmetry or something else.
I wonder how many people could detect
a 1/2" difference in rocker by eye. I owned a Malecite for several years and I sure couldn’t tell any asymmetry using the Mark 1 eyeball. I do doubt that MRC was referring to sheer line when they said asymmetrical, since as far as I know most if not all of their boats have had asymmetrical sheer lines but most are listed as symmetrical in their literature.
This time you are wrong. The Malecite
was not designed as a downriver racing canoe, and that it did well in one race only shows that the class was weak at the time, and the paddlers in the malecite were strong. Any two NOC staffers in a Tripper would have crushed the Malecite in that race.
Jim Henry raced slalom in a 13’ Compatriot, and placed third. Did that make the Compatriot a slalom boat, even by the standards of the time? No. I bought a Compatriot in '73, and it was virtually helpless even on a class 2 slalom course.
The Malecite was conceived and marketed as a general purpose light tandem. Nothing more.
Link: Henry wins in 1971 DR in Malecite
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http://www.madrivercanoe.com/pages/index/heritage/
http://www.madrivercanoe.com/content/madrivercanoe.com/assets/page/heritage/history_jimhenry.jpg
I don’t trust MR literature on such
issues. My Mad River Synergy, the whitewater tandem that came out about the same time as the Dagger Caption, was described in MR literature as “fishform.” Ridiculous. The Synergy is markedly Swedeform.
Didactic?
Oh shucks, who would be didactic on a canoe board?
But speaking of John Winters, the term “swede form” is an ambiguous term that is confusingly used to refer either to an LCF (widest point of the water line) or an LCB (longitudinal center of buouyancy) that is aft of midships. The widest gunwale beam is completely irrelevant because it doesn’t affect water line performance. Winters says “the location of the LCB has been shown to be more important to performance than the location of the LCF”. Therefore, he prefers the LCB definition of swede form as more technically correct.
Re Lazauskas, you must read past the first sentence of the reference you like.
I personally have no knowledge, spec-wise, as to whether the Malecite is asymmetrical in any of its lines, but am just going by what others have said in this thread. From my own personal recollections, I would say that if it’s asymmetrical, it’s probably only trivially so.
Patrick Moore recently emerged from a 10 year absence from canoeing in no small part because he saw the specs and shapes of his canoes being misrepresented on canoe boards. So he has said in a yet-to-be published interview … possibly didactically. He also claims to be an autodidact.
So I had to look
Can’t find my old Canoe Mags in my mess, so I looked at the current MR website, where I found that history stuff.
The Malecite page says the hull is symmetrical, though the specs do show an asymmetrical sheer line and rocker line. As CEW would say: So it goes.
As I surmised below (earlier), the water line is probably trivially asymmetrical – maybe even trivially fish form if the bow rocker is less than the stern rocker.
I have six MRC catalogs at hand
1990-1994 and 1997.
They all describe the Malecite hull the same way:
slight rocker
asymmetrical
shallow V
In all of the images (taken from the side) one can appreciate a mild asymmetry in sheer and no asymmetry in rocker.
Here is such an image: http://www.canoekayak.com/gear/boat-book-mad-river-canoe/
If you look closely at the photo of the red Malecite I think you can appreciate a mild asymmetry in sheer. I sure don’t see any difference in rocker.
I didn’t say he didn’t win, only that
the Malecite is not a downriver or even a whitewater boat. I talked to Jim Henry about his racing the Compatriot in slalom. He knew very well that it was not a proper whitewater boat either, but he paddled it effectively.
Here’s the current web catalog page
http://www.madrivercanoe.com/product/index/products/touring/malecite_series/malecite/
Calls it symmetrical, touting the ability to be paddled in reverse, and even says it will be slower than an asymmetrical swede form hull.
All sort of meaningless, IMO.
He not only won the DR race
But he did it solo and in 22 miles of WW. So, just from the known history of the canoe, it’s first recorded public appearance was as a solo not a tandem. That’s what the original OP was asking about.
Of course, any canoe that is 16.5’ long and 34.5" max beam can be outfitted as a solo or tandem – so the OP’s question is sort of meaningless in a functional sense. I’m sure Henry, when he started his company with only his one boat, the Malecite, quickly realized he could market it both ways.
You raise another interesting point. What “is” a downriver WW canoe if the Malecite “isn’t” one? I started a thread on cboats.net asking what the current popular downriver boats were. I was really trying to find out whether current DR paddlers used bent or straight paddles, and if bents, whether they sat or kneeled in their downriver WW canoes.
As to the popular DR canoe issue, one answer I got, from Kaz no less, was the OT Penobscot. So there you go: the Penobscot is a downriver WW solo canoe. I wouldn’t have even guessed at that opinion. But it’s clearly an opinion based on the actual historical usage of the Penobscot rather than on some preconceived design specs for a downriver canoe. I had preconceived design specs in my head: a delta canoe.
Well, a friend won the downriver
cruising class two years in a row in the Nantahala Southeasterns. But speaking as the boat inspector for the event, I inspected and approved several asymmetrical Kevlar solo canoes, very deep, no rocker, and the competitors using those boats posted much better times than my friend in his Penobscot. (He also won the first, and perhaps only, middle Ocoee downriver race, paddling an OCA. No Kevlar downriver boaters risked it.)
You raise an interesting point about sitting/kneeling and bent shaft paddles. At least some of the tandem competitors raced sitting with bent shaft paddles. They were guys who knew exactly where they had to be on the Nanty to run dry. I suppose there were people kneeling with bent shafts who didn’t know any better.
Beating a dead horse re:Moore
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You and him made up like 80% of the words on that thread! Being verbose does not mean being correct. Every single bit of information that 'supported' his/your argument on that thread was no more than an argument to support his regimen of 'sport' canoeing, as opposed to canoeing in general. The actual sport of canoeing has evolved far beyond his failed attempt to create his very own school/regimen/sport.
Moore's solo canoes work with Moore's theory. Limited audience, limited practicality. Hence the massive failure.
And I reject the idea that his sudden reappearance was due to people misinterpreting his designs. Frankly, it was very rarely ever a center of conversation. To the point of being insignificant. They were never great hulls regardless of whether the specific terminology used to describe them was correct. Most likely reason for the misconceptions was because the hulls were never good enough to inspire curiosity. Unless you were a Moore disciple there were too many other hulls to paddle that were better suited to 'non-Moore school' paddling. Friendlier boats that performed better too.
*The fact that a few months prior to his sudden reappearance I had been alerted to his intent to start teaching again has MUCH more to do with it.*
ETA: Glenn, you might want to reconsider the word didactic. Moore's personality is more aptly described as "patronizing."