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The most common place for cold cracks to occur is near the stems of the canoe. That is where the difference in expansion between the gunwales and the hull will have its greatest effect. That is probably for the better because the Royalex is somewhat thicker near the stems on most Royalex boats.

Just the hull. Although there is a fair bit of mystery surrounding the formation of cold cracks the predominant theory is differential thermal expansion of wood and Royalex. Royalex actually expands and contracts a fair bit with changes in temperature and wood less so. So if the hull expands...

If you buy it and wind up buying it and taking the gunwales off I would do two things. First, elongate all of the gunwale screw holes in the hull in the fore and aft direction a bit. That will reduce the chance of having more cold cracks occur in the future. Second, make sure you treat the...

This is for the benefit (hopefully) of the OP who is trying to decide whether or not to purchase the canoe. Repairing cold cracks is not difficult if you have some patience and a little time. Although some back up their repair with an internal patch of fiberglass or some other fabric, I have...

Although there are those who say that Royalex canoes become brittle with age and some who have actually experienced this, I have Royalex canoes that date back to the early 1980s that are doing just fine. You have a couple of "cold cracks". I would not let that prevent me from buying the canoe...

Both aramid and carbon fiber have very high strength to weight ratios so they allow construction of a light canoe. Aramid has much better strength in tension than compression so it is best used for interior layers where the fibers will be stretched if the outer convex hull is indented. Carbon...

G Flex will work and I have used it to effect repairs in many Royalex canoes and also a few single-layer polyethylene kayaks and C-1s (one of which was a cross-linked PE hull) and one three-layer, roto-molded PE canoe. But to achieve a satisfactory bond to PE using G Flex epoxy you must first...

Plastic welding is often used to repair cracks in single-layer, linear polyethylene canoes and kayaks. The Ram-X material is a three-layer rotomolded PE material with a foam core. What is more, it is described as "cross-link thermoformed high density polyethylene". There are two chemically...

As for full-on whitewater solos, I have owned many and paddled more over the years. My three all-time favorites would probably be my Royalex Mad River ME, my Clipper Viper 12 (composite version of the Mohawk Viper 12), and my Dagger Ocoee. My favorite flat water solo is my Wenonah Advantage...

The Starfire, Flashfire, and Wildfire were designed by David Yost on commission from Charlie Wilson when the latter was a principle at Bell Canoe. Those two held the rights to the design so Bell Canoe stopped manufacturing those canoes sometime after Wilson left Bell in 1999, although Bell...

I have size eleven feet and I sold my Flashfire because I did have some difficulty extracting my feet from underneath the seat. I have a Wildfire with a kneeling thwart and being one inch deeper than the Flash, I can get my feet under and back out easily.

Scheduled releases on the middle Ocoee are typically five days a week (Thursday through Monday) June through August, and weekend days in May, September, and October. Releases on the upper Ocoee are limited to weekends May through August and the first weekend in September. Most other times...

Some of the rapids have different or alternate names. Broken Nose was sometimes called Vegematic at one time, and Second Helping is now usually called Slice and Dice. Torpedo is now usually known as Cat's Pajamas and since Hell's Hole is now a little tamer (and the bridge has been relocated...

Those familiar with the Ocoee River in eastern Tennessee (which includes pretty much every whitewater paddler in the Southeast US as well as many others) might find this 20 minute film on the very early history of whitewater paddling on the Ocoee back in the 1970s. Gary Harper filmed and edited...

Although there are ten knots to learn instead of just three, I consider this videos list to be far more useful. I have used all of these knots.

You can't run the rope around an object or through a grab loop and tie a double dragon knot, or conversely untie the knot while the rope or line is still around or through the object, at least not as shown in the video. Doing either is very easy with the bowline. It is pretty easy to do with...

All of the rope that I use on the water is of kernmantle construction, 3/8" or 7/16" diameter, with a synthetic Spectra or Dyneema kern and a polypropylene mantle so that it floats. The synthetic core makes the rope much stronger than all polypropylene construction and thus makes it suitable...

In past years the Three Rivers Paddling Club has accommodated boaters with little or no whitewater experience so long as they had the necessary equipment. But if you are interested, it would be best to phone the event coordinator. It is probably too early to know who that will be. Here is...

I lived in Tennessee and northeast Pennsylvania when I took most of those courses.

The TRPC "Slip Clinic" has been held the first weekend of June for many years. For better or worse that has been the same weekend as the Western Pennsylvania Solo Canoe Rendezvous. The Slip Clinic is conducted on the Slippery Rock Creek in McConnells Mill State Park. The event has been hosted...