Savage River Blackwater solo canoe

yknpdlr said:

You might give Ben Diller at Savage River a call to discuss various strength and durability options of their layups. Last fall I received a new Blackwater solo canoe in Texreme Lite, promised at and measured at 19 pounds. it is to become my new flatwater and slow river tripping canoe. I have no intention of using it in fast water or being rough with it in any way. I am enjoying my first paddling this spring in it and I love it. Way more stable than a PB Shadow and just as fast, or faster, especially in wind. I also enjoyed working with Bill Swift a couple of years ago for a new carbon fusion Cruiser. with even greater stability for my daughter.

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Can I ask more about your Blackwater?

Their layup pricing/weight spreadsheet shows the Textreme Ultralite as 19 lbs...Textreme Lite at 21.

Did you actually get the Ultralite, or did you get the Textreme Lite & make other selections (like the interior layer) to bring the weight down?

Carbon fiber thwarts & handles, or Aluminum? Stock seat? Foot brace? What else?

My Blackwater is great, but I do dream of getting a lighter one. 19 pounds is pretty sweet for such a rocket.

PortageW/Cerberus said:

Can I ask more about your Blackwater?

Their layup pricing/weight spreadsheet shows the Textreme Ultralite as 19 lbs...Textreme Lite at 21.

Did you actually get the Ultralite, or did you get the Textreme Lite & make other selections (like the interior layer) to bring the weight down?

Carbon fiber thwarts & handles, or Aluminum? Stock seat? Foot brace? What else?

My Blackwater is great, but I do dream of getting a lighter one. 19 pounds is pretty sweet for such a rocket.

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Ben told me it would weigh in at 19 pounds and that is what I measure in the final product at home. Everything that can be carbon is carbon. Sliding race style seat with attqched sliding footbrace. A real joy to paddle and easy to carry.

Even without any significant rocker I am able to turn quite well, and I feel I would have no problem making a 180 degree buoy turn at speed. One difference I do notice is that unlike all of my other canoes and others I have paddled, that it best likes to carve a turn with an intsde heel lean, opposite all the others.

A sanitized version of my final invoice is attached.

yknpdlr said:

Ben told me it would weigh in at 19 pounds and that is what I measure in the final product at home. Everything that can be carbon is carbon. Sliding race style seat with attqched sliding footbrace. A real joy to paddle and easy to carry.

Even without any significant rocker I am able to turn quite well, and I feel I would have no problem making a 180 degree buoy turn at speed. One difference I do notice is that unlike all of my other canoes and others I have paddled, that it best likes to carve a turn with an intsde heel lean, opposite all the others.

A sanitized version of my final invoice is attached.
View attachment 146395

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Cool! What is the 5” square gunwale??

Also, what do you do for a yoke?

PortageW/Cerberus said:

Cool! What is the 5” square gunwale??

Also, what do you do for a yoke?

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Since the BW gunwales have no innwale for a yoke clamp to grip, I asked Ben to glue in small carbon blocks that my yoke would clamp to at the balance point. I also use a hand line at my waist attached bow to stern to control the up/down tip of the canoe while carrying. I remove the pads from the yoke when I portage using a Knupac system.

yknpdlr said:

Since. the BW gunwales have no innwale for a yoke clamp to grip, I asked Ben to glue in small carbon blocks that my yoke would clamp to at the balance point. I also use a hand line at my waist attached bow to stern to balance the tip of the canoe while carrying. I remove the pads from the yoke when I portage using a Knupac system.

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Neat. I may need to sell some of my other boats to fund a new build.

How tough are the carbon fiber thwarts?

Would love to see more photos.

Would also love to hear your thoughts after you've taken it on a few wilderness trips. Wonder if the black interior will be hot (I trip with a dog - could be an issue); wonder how the sliding seat & footrest works in real life....etc.

Thanks for sharing.

The sliding seat is not used as a dynamic slider while paddling. Although I can easily move it forward and back to fixed positions while on the water, its main purpose is to adjust trim for different wind and wave conditions. My PB Rapidfire and Shadow have similar movable seats, but with fixed foot rest blocks. Although I will use the BW for lightweight gear wilderness tripping, its primary use is for me to train single blade paddling at speed as I am training for racing in larger multi seat boats with my team, C2, C4, or voyageur. The BW does have plenty of capacity to carry normal camp tripping gear. My most recent camping trips have been with the Leanto Rescue work group (L2R), when I need to haul heavier and bulky loads of work plus camping gear, so I have other solo canoes such as a Swift Cruiser (also equipped with an integrated movable seat/footrest) better suited for that purpose. Unfortunately, the BW at 17 feet in length, is too long to be allowed to race in the Solo-Recreational class of official rules sanctioned canoe races.

I do not see the black interior to be any issue for my use. I do not have a dog anymore.

I'm going to move the discussion of the Savage River Blackwater solo canoe to its own thread—this one.

yknpdlr said:

The sliding seat is not used as a dynamic slider while paddling. Although I can easily move it forward and back to fixed positions while on the water, its main purpose is to adjust trim for different wind and wave conditions. My PB Rapidfire and Shadow have similar movable seats, but with fixed foot rest blocks. Although I will use the BW for lightweight gear wilderness tripping, its primary use is for me to train single blade paddling at speed as I am training for racing in larger multi seat boats with my team, C2, C4, or voyageur. The BW does have plenty of capacity to carry normal camp tripping gear. My most recent camping trips have been with the Leanto Rescue work group (L2R), when I need to haul heavier and bulky loads of work plus camping gear, so I have other solo canoes such as a Swift Cruiser (also equipped with an integrated movable seat/footrest) better suited for that purpose. Unfortunately, the BW at 17 feet in length, is too long to be allowed to race in the Solo-Recreational class of official rules sanctioned canoe races.

I do not see the black interior to be any issue for my use. I do not have a dog anymore.

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Sounds like our uses are different.

On the seat, mine also came with a slider but mounted on an aluminum frame rather than the carbon fiber bulkheads. Can move on the fly but it is, as you say, not dynamic.

I have found that moving the seat alone sometimes does not change the trim enough. On lengthy trips I will have a spare dry bag to fill with water - in heavy winds & waves I've pulled over to make a more radical change in trim.

However more curious about how that works with the footrest - they are connected, right? Move one, move the other? My footrest is old-school.

The Blackwater has enough room for me to stay out for 60 days w/out resupply, easy...though I do pack light. That said, 60 days is theoretical and my trips are usually 8-11 days (however 14 days next month) in NW Ontario, beating across the Canadian Shield. Tough boat.

Any more pics you'd be willing to share - I would be more than happy to see your newest ride.


PS Thanks Glenn; sorry to have hijacked the other thread.

I spent a fair amount of time in a Blackwater X at WPACR last weekend and really fell in love with the boat. I never in a million years though I would like a "race" hull, and had actually asked Savage River to bring a Deep Creek Solo to try. While I was waiting my turn for that boat, Ben saw me admiring the BWX and commented that I should paddle it. I demurred, making the usual explanatory gesture at my large frame. However, he was insistent and bet that not only would I not roll, but that I would enjoy the Blackwater more than the Deep Creek. That was heretical to me, so I took him up on the challenge.

Dangit, he was right. The BWX handled all 270lbs of me just fine. We added another 100+lbs in water bags just to be sure, and while I could definitely tell there was extra weight aboard, it didnt feel overloaded. Now I am saving my pennies and trying to sort my build list out before considering an October order. Ben, John, and I talked at length about different "off menu" layup possibilities and other options.

Lots to think about, and I would love to hear more about this boat, particularly as a flatwater tripper. Since starting my research, I commonly see the BWX compared to the Swift Cruiser 16.8, with paddlers saying they think the Cruiser would be better for the purpose. Why is that? 70% of my use will be flatwater tripping, with 30% training/racing.

some possible reasonswhy swift has a bigger can base:
swift sells probably 4 times more boats, or more
siwft has a dealer network
swift keeps his socia media running
(where are the specs of the bw x or is this just the rename of the 17 ? or is it a bigger versoin next to the 17
dave yost has designed many boats and is wel known ( he has desinged soem great hull . but not all are brilliant)
having charlie wilson as a ambassador is/was good to get people know youur boats

The blackwater is a very nice boat. enjoy it

Tryin, good for you. Fun boat, eh? Since you mention the Swift 16.8 and that was one I considered...a few tidbits:
Reports are that the swift is not as fast as the Blackwater. In fact, I know another Blackwater owner who paddled the Swift 17.8 and thought it was also not quite as fast. But the 17.8 should at least be closer in speed...

The key issue for me was weight. The lightest version of a Swift 16.8 is 29#. As yknpdlr tells us, the Blackwater can be made 10# lighter.
Turns out each year I am older than the previous one, and weight of my tripping load is increasingly important.

I do bet those swifts turn a little better.

Swift sure makes beautiful boats. Savage River does too - glad to see them using color now.

Lastly, I don't think it can be overstated how much abuse I've thrown at my Blackwater. It's a tripper and had survived lots of close contact with Canadian Shield. I've had countless harder-than-intended landings. If there is a barely-submerged rock I could hit, I am surely going to do so. I've had it blown and bounced across rocky landings. I have a bike trailer for the canoe and flipped the trailer with the boat on it once on the open road. I have literally hauled/dragged it up a cliff-face by the painter line to start a remote bushwhack portage in WCPP.

It has some love marks, but far fewer than you'd think; compared to my kevlar boats it's like armor. Seriously tough boat. It is a high mileage tripper and yet it is going to easily outlive me (& I hope I have 20-25 years of tripping left).

dutchlennart said:

(where are the specs of the bw x or is this just the rename of the 17 ? or is it a bigger versoin next to the 17

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The "X" is an extra volume option. A shim is added to the mold betwixt the halves prior to layup. I didnt have my square to pull some real measurement comparison.

@PortageW/Cerberus

That is some good real-world info, thank you. I was shocked at how strong the hull felt compared to its weight.

Also, what are the specs on your build? Particularly interested in layups.

Tryin' said:

@PortageW/Cerberus

That is some good real-world info, thank you. I was shocked at how strong the hull felt compared to its weight.

Also, what are the specs on your build? Particularly interested in layups.

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Tryin', I am not the original owner; I bought it 5 years ago and it was built in 2011. Mine was 27#; now 24# with a seating change. So it's on the heavy end of the spectrum. I suspect some of the lighter materials available now were not available then; they may have been changes to some aspects of the construction in 15 years as well.

Anyway, my boat is the basic Carbon over Kevlar with aluminum thwarts...pretty much the exact boat you see at the top of SR's Blackwater web page (just above the list of the specs).

Some day I may spend the $ for the 19# boat. But not today.