Any owner of the boat? Do you like it?
Do you paddle it mostly solo or tendem?
Pnet Product Reviews
I’ve never paddled one but quite a few reviews here you can check out:
http://www.paddling.net/Reviews/showReviews.html?prod=23
I saw those…
Lots of glowing reviews. But it’s easy write a positive review for your own boat.
Now I’m sure those folks were very happy with their purchase. Would just like to kick it around a little more in-depth.
I like designing and building my own boats. I have one in mind a lot like the Solo-plus but 6" longer and 2" narrower. I guess more along the lines of an Encounter.
Anyway, just trying to get some more insight and thoughts on those changes. I’m “what-if”-ing .
duh…I probably should have stated all that up front huh? ;p
We paddle ours mostly tandem.
I’m 5’6" and 150 lbs and it just seems too big for me to paddle effectively solo. I’ve done it in strong head winds and had great difficulty keeping up with tandem canoes and solo kayaks because I was being blown all around. In calm conditions it’s not too bad. Tandem it’s fine for us. We’ve also had our 3 1/2 year old grand daughter on the center seat last year with her hanging over the side of the boat playing in the water and weren’t concerned about swamping the boat.
I prefer paddling my dedicated solo canoes more than paddling the Solo Plus solo. When I do paddle the Solo Plus solo, I prefer a 240 cm kaya paddle rather than a canoe paddle. I had problems tracking solo with the canoe paddle unless I used a lot of j-strokes or switched sides a lot. Heaver people may not have this problem.
My wife likes it better than the tandem kayaks and other tandem canoes we’ve had. I think it’s plenty stable as a tandem, but we’ve only had it tandem on lakes. Ours is royalex and I like not being concerned about scratching it on rocks.
Good luck.
How about a solo-plus type canoe
with rocker, good flatwater speed, and decent whitewater capability?
The Millbrook AC/DC, 16.5’ long, 31 inches wide, 42 pounds, designed by John Berry to win the combined slalom and downriver class in open canoe whitewater championships. About $1200 in S-glass outside, Kevlar inside, ash gunwales.
Sounds good to me : )
ouch!
I figured I’m gonna spend about $400 building mine. Even using s-glass.