Here’s a couple of video clips from the recent canoe launch. There are full construction details about this boat a couple posts back AND I just posted a detailed video about it on the Cape Falcon Kayak YouTube channel, with a lot more information than I can write here.
Being a novice canoeist I’m not the best person to assess what is or isn’t a good canoe but this latest boat feels pretty good to me. The narrower width works well with my medium sized frame for a nice efficient stroke. For various reasons I can’t paddle very much these days but being on the water in this makes me really wish I had more time to devote to becoming a canoeist. There’s just an addictive peacefulness to the experience that is not the same in a kayak.
Sitting a little lower in the water helps to engage the buoyant sections of the canoe so stability really isn’t much different than the same canoe one size larger, although the actual tipping point would probably come sooner. A perfect fit for me on this boat would probably be 1 foot longer to get just a bit higher in the water. This is the downside of the nesting canoes, usually one boat has to be a little bit smaller or a little bit bigger than you want, but fortunately this is Liz’s boat though so I think it will fit her nicely.
Another idea behind this boat was to assess its performance as a hybrid double paddle/ single blade canoe. Generally I try to avoid compromise boats but the last one of these was really nice so it made sense to try one of a different flavor. The last one of these I biased towards double paddle performance with lighter framing and three-quarter inches less depth. This one is framed a lot heavier and is deeper making it 28 pounds as opposed to 23. I can’t say that I like it more or less it’s just a different point on the spectrum between pack canoe and full-size single blade canoe.
The rocker on this one flattened out a little bit more than the last one which is more than anything just reflective of the variation within a range that is impossible to fully control in skin on frame. At one and three-quarter inches it still seems to strike a good balance between tracking.
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