Not That Long Ago? Time Flys
It was as recent as the early 90’s that the Dancer was the weapon of choice at the Santa Cruz kayak surfing festival.
I must admit I bought one for my son and then changed my mind about it, and gave it to Tsunami Chuck. He gave it to a young boy as a first kayak.
But my son was 16 at that time, and he lives in Ashland, OR right on the Rogue River, and he was already an intermediate kayaker with a roll. I was concerned he might take it out on really serious WW.
I had a Dancer for a couple years.
– Last Updated: Nov-21-05 1:46 PM EST –
I only paddled it a couple times because it was too tight and uncomfortable for me and I'm only 5'6" and was 145 lbs when I sold it. I bought it to replace my Perception Keowee 1 for paddling upstream and floating back down our local shallow creeks, but found that it was much more dangerous to get in and out of the Dancer in swift moving water that was too swift and shallow to paddle upstream. In those cases, I had to get out of the boat and pull it through the swift & shallow water and remount in the slower water. There weren't any places along the shore to make a landing to get out - it had to be done in the stream. In this situation, I found the large open cockpit of the Keowee made the multiple exits & reentries much quicker, easier & safer. In this situation, the Dancer had no advantages over the Keowee and the Keowee did have advantages over the Dancer.
For flatwater, I still preferred the Keowee because it was more comfortable and easier to keep going straight.
A couple years after I got the Dancer, I bought a used Phoenix Ocoee old style down river ww kayak that weighed only 25 lbs and was easier to get in and out of, so I never paddled the Dancer again. It was just too tight of a fit for me for day trips and no fun to keep straight.
Two summers ago I paddled 16 miles on the Wabash River in IN and most of the people were in tandem canoes, but one guy was paddling his Dancer. He seemed to have absolutely no trouble keeping up with the tandem canoers or any trouble keeping the boat straight. He even made side trips into drainage ditches and tributaries and seemed to be quite at ease with and quite skilled with his Dancer. It was his only boat and he'd had it for several years. It seemed to be a great boat for him, but I didn't like the way it fit or the way it tracked.
Different strokes & boats for different folks.
The Dancer would probably be good enough first boat for a child that fits it well enough. Who knows, maybe they'll be like the guy I paddled with on the Wabash two years ago and be quite content with the Dancer. I didn't have any stability problems with it.