Bought the Nova Craft Prospector 18’ as a family tripping boat. Kids, now teens, have graduated to their own boats. Wife and I hope to do a lot of week-long class II+ tripping from here on out.
We are pretty efficient packers. We’re down to one 60L barrel, 1 portage pack, and a day pack.
I’m wondering if it’s worth the effort of selling my 18’ to get a 16’ for the handling and turning in WW. A lot of the posts I’m finding recommend the 17’. Going from 18’ to 16’ seems to be gaining an advantage. But going to 17’ feels like a lot of work for just twiddling around the edges.
The 18’ is laced and bagged for WW already. Though I enjoy outfitting boats.
Buy the 16’, but keep the 18’. I always had 16 footers when I had kids and ended up in two boats, and wished I had something bigger. Then the kids left and the 16’ was great and even could handle it solo. Still have the 16 footers, but now that I have grandkids, I bought an 18’ and am glad for it. You’re probably thinking it’ll be a long time before the grandkids arrive, but store that 18’ somewhere and it’ll be like getting a new boat when they do arrive.
How much rocker does your Novacraft have ? That is the most important question. You are not going heavy, so you should not be too deep in the water.
Longer canoes can smooth out the wave trains and really travel. I really like big canoes, 18 feet or more. As long as you can turn it you are way ahead with a larger boat. It might be fun to have a whitewater boat for day trips but I would keep the Tripper.
I sold our 18’ OT Penobscot, only because we had 8 boats and running out of storage room.
we went to a 16’ MR Explorer and it’s an improvement on ww, though slower. The OT was a bit of a container ship when turning, from the captain’s perch in the rear I had to signal intentions well ahead of the turn. It ran class II-III perfectly well, mostly because my wife in the bow is pretty good.
Luckily the Penobscot now belongs to my neighbor, and I borrow it back when needed… my sons are young and strong and can carry it around.
