Yup! I’ve got most of those…
…hats and no matter which one I wore I fell in every place. (I think the Tilley’s gonna kill me, though! Damn N.T.!)
I’ve poled in several different hulls, though I do believe in most cases they were “symmetrical” designs. I put symmetrical in quotes because most of them were fairly well used, and thusly had developed some, shall we say, abnormalities to form (Though perhaps not as perverse as dougd’s inversed-Quasimodo he so elegantly puddles about.) All (Appalachian, Camper, Explorer 16, Penobscott 16, Prospector 16 & 17, Das Uberbot) had particular nuances to their design that I could sense, but, with the exception of the Explorer, having not poled most of them often enough I could neither deride nor praise them as the one boat to pole it all.
And, since in most of them there was always slight differences as to seat-yoke-thwart stationing, it was always much experimenting as to where to stand. But, being as hey were “symmetrical”, at least I proceeded with the sense that I was pushing the same general hull config whether it was bow or stern proceeding me.
So far, I’m quite a happy man snubbing with my glass Explorer, especially with my twitchy, to say the least, 58-lb. canine Moby aboard. Something about that semi-vee giving a friendly lean indication when the fur dervish throws his 15-lbs. of olfactory pointer and brain-bucket bolis over one rail to the other.
But, especially with the dog aboard, or not, I’ve never really felt as confidant climbing ledges upstream in the Explorer as I have within a Prospector, and even more so in the Appalachian. I’d guess this would possibly be due to the additional rocker, and thus a greater ease at pivoting the snout when you’re sneakin’ out of a boulder eddy into that pushy froth coming at you with a vengeance.
Need to take more lessons from dougd, I guess. Learn how to get further sternward, as I bend kness like a sneaky bantam rooster and, stab-stab-stab with the shortened thrusts of a Anthony Perkins takin’ out a showerein’ Janet Leigh. Oh, and make the dog hike it along the bank!
Hell poling’s fun!
TW