Solo Flatwater Canoe for Small Paddler

For OC-1s I mostly paddled
a Mad River Fantasy and a Twister, but also spent time in a Probe, Outrage, and an Encore, which was too big for me. Preferred the Twister out of all of them, followed by the Fantasy. Can’t recall the widths or depths on them though.

Oh, I do like
the look of the Conk seat. Thanks for that link.



Funny you should mention a road trip as I was just thinking the same thing.

Twister, Fantasy, Outrage
The Mad River Twister was 14 1/2" deep at center, pretty typical for a whitewater boat. Its pinched gunwales made it quite narrow at the gunwales at 22" but flared out to 26 1/2" at the 4" waterline, quite similar to the Dragonfly.



Mad River Fantasy was 15" deep at center and its very flared hull had a gunwale width of 30 1/2" but a 4" waterline depth of 25".



The Mad River Outrage had a depth at center of 15". It is somewhat narrow for a whitewater OC1 with a gunwale width of 25 1/2" and a 4" waterline width of 26 3/4".



For reference the Dragonfly is 14" deep at center with a gunwale width of 24" and a 4" waterline width of 26".

I don’t know
If it would work for what you want, but I have a 30# 1987 Kevlar Curtis Vagabond listed in the classified ads here. It has only a small amount of rocker. I think the seat could be removed and you could kneel at the back thwart with your dog in front. Others here could tell you if this would work.

Vag is precursor
of Kestral…similr specs with a bit more stern rocker. Curtis boats were very well built…have owned 3.

Wow
That is a pile of data above, kinda poorly sorted.



OK, you are extremely compact. You’re gonna need a narrow hull, probably with tumblehome to allow what are likely narrow shoulders to stack hands across the rail.



Narrowest tumblehomed hull was the Curtis MayFly at 26.5:, but there were only 20 or so made in the 80’s. Mold is with Colden Canoe.



There are/were a few 27.5" wide canoes made; Placid SpitFire at 12’, Curtis Vagabond at 14.75’, Hemlock Kestrel at 14’.75’ and Placid RapidFire at 15’. All but the original Vagabond have differential rocker.



There are two 28" wide hulls, Swifts 14 foot Keewaydin 14 and next years Kee 12.5’



There are also 28.5 in wide hulls, the Bell/Placid/Colden FlashFire at 13’, the Curtis/Colden DragonFly at 14.5’ and the Curtis/Colden Nomad at 15.25’, the Hemlock SRT at 15’ and the Hemlock Peregrine at 15.75’

All of the 28.5 hulls excepting the Flash are way large for you.



The 26.5- 28.5 width thing should be a function of thigh length. We want out sitz bones on the seat and knees well up in the chines. Fit can be adjusted with seat height and thicker knee pads.



The rocker thing is key. Differential rocker helps tracking while one is learning to dominate the forward stroke. Once that is achieved most prefer significant and symmetrical rocker.



I have a comprehensive list of available and historical solo canoe dimensions that will allow you to make a grid of rational differential and symmetrical rockered hulls. email me at charliewilson77@gmail.com for the listings.

Vagabond gunwales pretty wide for a
paddler her size. The gunwales on my Curtis Vagabond were wider than I prefer and I’m 5’6".

That is a helpful comparison
of the old school boat measurements - thanks. Not sure if you store that information in the back of your mind or keep good records, but either way it is pretty impressive that you can pull those numbers together in such short order!

Yay, thanks for synthesizing
all this great information folks have been proving! I was planning to make a chart this weekend to sort things out (a little geeky maybe, but I like doing that kind of stuff) so your comprehensive list will be quite handy.



So when you say all of the 28.5" hulls, other than the Flashfire, would be way too big, is that due the the depth and/or the shape of the hull and where the chines are? In other words, when looking at the specs, how could I tell which boats would or wouldn’t work for me when the widths are all the same?



Also, Colden’s site says the Flashfire width at the gunwale is 26" and max is 29". Are they just rounding up to 29" from 28.5"? And should I be focusing in the max width measurements when comparing models rather than the gunwale width?



Apologies if that’s too many questions! This is way more complicated than a C1. :slight_smile:

Yeah
Length is an important component of volume. The longer 28.5 in hulls will float higher in the water and be a little less stable. The other issue is forward speed. Longer hulls are always faster, Sq Rt of waterline length X 1.55 = theoretical speed in mph is the formula for wave making limitation, but they also have more wetted surface area and thereby have more skin drag. Let me tell a story.



One of the guys above is an excellent paddler as is his petite wife. e noticed when they paddle together, He in a Nomad, she in a Vagabond, that he often has to wait for her to catch up, but when she paddles her 12 ft Button she often has to wait for him in his Nomad. Why’s that?



Skin friction! Neither are paddling hard enough to get to speeds where wave making resistance becomes a factor. At their moderate speeds the main resistance factor is skin drag. His drag is constant because he;s in the same boat. Her’s drops significantly in the shorter boat, so Carol is faster at tripping speeds in the Button because she struggles to overcome the drag in the 14.75 ft hull.



29 in Flash? Yeah Paul is rounding or the mold has spread.

Differential rocker

– Last Updated: Aug-19-16 10:18 AM EST –

I like highly asymmetrical hulls with differential rocker just fine in a "go straight and fast" type of flat water touring hull. Something along the lines of a Bell Magic or Placid Rapidfire. In that type of boat, a swedeform hull with a bit of rocker in front and less in the back works just fine. But don't expect that type of hull to effortlessly spin on a dime.

A lot of people go through an evolution, favoring rather straight-keeled boats with little or no rocker initially because they are easier to make go straight. They then tend to gravitate toward more rockered hulls because they turn easier and are more playful and they have learned that it is the paddle and the paddler that makes the canoe go straight. Differential rocker is sort of a compromise adding enough rocker to facilitate turning but keeping the stern a bit "skegged" to facilitate tracking. For myself, I prefer to go one way or the other. For river play I find more or less symmetrical hulls with symmetrical rocker more predictable.

You have already made that evolution. Buy a boat with little or asymmetrical rocker if you want, but one thing is sure. If you have paddled C-1s or highly rockered OC-1s like the Twister or Outrage on whitewater and made them go where you wanted, you sure as heck do not need differential rocker to assist tracking.

As for boat size, as I and others have said, your dog is the kicker and you may need to make some compromises. If we were talking about a Pekingese it probably wouldn't make much difference. But a canoe optimally sized for you paddling alone might not be optimum when you put a 50 lb dog in it.

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That max width is just below the
gunwales… its at the shoulder.

Paul builds to order . You can spec what you want… He drew in my DragonFly gunwales a bit by accident. I did not notice.



He did and asked me to bring the boat back so he could lengthen the thwarts. He is a stickler for details but will fiddle as you wish within reason



Karen Knight paddled a FlashFire quite well… She was under five feet and 90 lbs. The boat was technically large for her. You may like the extra room as your dog does rule in this case…



Sizing boats for a paddler and a paddler/dog combo is often problematic…



This is an Aria… its virtually the same waterline shape as the Fires but above water lacks shouldered tumblehome. Me and my 65 lb dawg



http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff298/littleredcanoe/12240394_10206515115331662_6682468507293162871_o_zpszyi3ce7a.jpg



Charlie ought to have a pic of his dog entering his boat from the water when the hull was heeled. The results were not as dry…


Gunwale width is very important to me.
I sold my Curtis Vagabond and kept my Bell Merlin II for two main reasons:

  1. gunwale width wider in front of the paddler on the Vagabond.
  2. wood gunwales on the Vagabond and aluminum on the Merlin II.

Great pics Kim! NM

Although skin friction
has been mentioned a few times above, I didn’t realize how much of an impact it could have on speed. Very interesting and good to know.

Re differential rocker or skegg,
I have been pondering this quite a bit and agree that it makes sense to go one way or the other, and also that I probably don’t need that as a learning tool at this point. I have spent many, many hours playing around on flatwater with whitewater boats - paddling both in circles and as straight as a WW boat can go - so I think I could adapt and learn fairly easily.



I can see the dog is shaping up to be the tricky part of the equation, but with four dogs I’m not quite ready to give up on that yet. Initially I was thinking it would be pretty easy to just substitute a dog for tripping gear…


Love the picture
such a happy, proud pup!

Illusion
I don’t have a lot to add to what’s already been said about the boats mentioned.



A couple of small points. Conk also makes the seats for the Illusion. John, at Savage River is adept at customizing to your needs. I’m sure he’d set up a sliding seat for you.

Good to know
about the seat, thanks. I am gathering that these canoe builders tend to be an accommodating bunch.



What weight range was the Illusion designed to fit? It sounds like it is geared for smaller paddlers but not sure what that equates to in real numbers.

Weight
I’m about 135#. I commonly paddle with Max at about 47#. I’ve tripped with it many times carrying 75# ± gear. It never felt overloaded.