On a recent canoe testing/filming trip we fell asleep under clear skies next to a lovely high altitude lake, and woke up engulfed in clouds. Never ones to miss a great filming opportunity we took advantage of this giant free soft box. It’s gonna take a while to get through the editing but here’s a raw clip of me practicing some maneuvers in the latest 14 footer. I’ve still got a long way to go before I can call myself any sort of a canoeist but I’m enjoying the learning process.
I’m also really falling in love with this little canoe (full specs in the May 18th post). The maneuverability fits my personality and makes it versatile for mild white water, flat water, and just poking around in general. At 5’8” 160 pounds the ideal mixed use canoe for me would be 6 inches longer and a half inch narrower, but 14 foot clear lumber is a lot easier to find than than 16 foot lumber so I decided to give this size a try anyway. My general impression is exactly what I expected, I’d still rather have that extra 4-8 inches of length and just a squeak off the width, but it’s still a darn fun little boat that does everything I need it to.
I’m always pushing the envelope with shaping so I can tell my students what NOT to do, so I went with a 2 1/2 inch rocker on this boat (I recommend 1 1/2- 2) and was worried that I might have trouble keeping it running straight, but now that my stroke technique is getting better I’m glad that I decided to go for it. I’m also glad that I’m starting out with a 7 inch wide paddle. I’ll probably switch to 8 inches at some point for the extra control but the combination of less purchase on the water and the extra rocker is really forcing me to work on technique rather than just relying on a skeg effect for tracking. I’m obviously wagging the tail pretty hard here at the end but by the end of this trip I was able to eliminate that, which felt like an accomplishment.
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