I like the looks of the Wenonah Wildernessa and have paddles the royalex model but prefer the glass model though I haven’t paddled it. It seemed to be a nice “all around” canoe. I don’t read too much about them here but now that they’ve been manufactured for a while are there any owners that would care to discuss their Wilderness and how they use it the most, touring lakes/rivers, camping, fishing etc? What does the Wilderness most excel at? Thanks.
Two Salient Features
The Wilderness is one of a very small group of solo canoes designed from the ground up for todays “supersized” solo paddlers. As such, it carries a 31" wide max beam. Secondly, rather strangely, it has not rocker to speak of in this day of differential rocker in almost all watercraft. [I’ve read the specs, go look at the hull.]
So she’ll float big guys and track, but one’ll need to heel her pretty far down to free the stems and turn.
good boat
– Last Updated: Jun-17-10 1:27 AM EST –
I've paddled one for a couple of years, primarily on lakes, but with a few lazy rivers mixed in. It's a well-designed general purpose canoe that is small enough for day paddling, but big enough that that it can be used for tripping. It is a fairly efficient hull, and the handling strikes a good balance between tracking and maneuverability, except for the freestylers who don't like a boat unless they can use it to drill holes in the water.
Although it is larger than the mini-boats that were designed with yesteryear's anorexic short-armed midgets in mind, it will work for a broad range of paddlers, and in the less expensive layups is still affordable for those who have not amassed the dragon's hoard of gold and jewels that is needed to purchase one of the top-end models from other manufacturers.
I keep out of this.
you can find some good info on solotripping and songof the paddle. Personaly at 75 kilo I like it as an easy boat to paddle in. stable and easy to work with.
wilderness
I’ve put hundreds of miles on mine (royalex) from lakes to class II rivers. Being 31" wide you need to be fairly big to paddle it correctly.
Has the capacity to carry a ton of gear. Very stable. Decent speed.
It likes to go straight, so really small twisty streams and creeks can be challenging.