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I'm not surprised based on my experience paddling a Clipper Sea-1 decked canoe with a carbon bent shaft paddle. I bought the Sea-1 canoe because most of my paddling friends at the time owned sea kayaks but I prefer sitting in a canoe vs a kayak and prefer single blade vs double blade. Although...

She's good; I saw her do a demonstration at a freestyle symposium a couple years ago. I learned to canoe based on her father Bill's book and video and started out with two tandem canoes, one white water and one for big lakes that I also paddled solo. I soon migrated to a solo white water and...

Doh! I gotta retract the 28.5" max width I was using! Just re-measured my Kestrel properly (rather than upside down under a cover) and yes, it's 27.5" wide. And I looked again at the web page print-to-pdf file I had and the columns had gotten offset and the widths for the Peregrine were showing...

Interesting that I find two max widths shown for the Kestrel depending on the source. It's currently listed as 27.5" max on the new Hemlock Canoes web site but I saved an older web page that showed 28.5" max width. I just measured my 2020 Hemlock Kestrel and it measures 28.5" max width. Doh...

The Kestrel seems to have been modified to provide a little more initial stability with a shallower arch but still keeps most of what makes the Vagabond work well. The Kestrel is a canoe my spouse feels comfortable using so she's happy on day trips and the Kestrel works fine for me as a...

We have a Kestrel and really enjoy the canoe but I got to paddle a Vagabond at one of Dave's Tuesday Night paddles. I liked it a lot. It's similar to the Kestrel but appears to have a more rounded hull bottom so for me, seemed both faster and a bit more nimble than the Kestrel. I was very...

Good find! I didn't go through the entire list but several of my canoe racing friends showed up. I wonder if there's a way to select which categories/columns are searched and displayed or a way to copy/download a data set? I'd like to see not only first place but also rankings for second and...

That's a nice day trip.

I'm posting this day trip mainly because it's rather unique owing to it's location and timing... Rainy Lake is located in the North Cascades of Washington state, within the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and accessible from scenic Highway 20. It's a mile in from the trailhead using a...

The Starfire is a popular tandem Freestyle canoe for a reason.

I have a Northstar solo and didn't like using the grab loops with the car tie-down lines or using the deck as a hand hold so I installed an ash handle at each end. I like the contoured handles they sell at Hemlock Canoes.

The Advantage wasn't intended to be a canoe that requires correction strokes, it was designed to go straight and fast with a bent shaft paddle. The offside yaw that results from hit-and-switch paddling is inherent to the stroke, to keep yaw at a minimum requires good technique. And the Advantage...

I don't enjoy cooking that much when I'm camping so prefer to prepare my own meals, which typically involves nothing more complicated than boiling water. 😁

The Advantage was designed to go straight with efficiency, and using a J-stroke does not work all that well with that canoe. So you'll have to become comfortable with effective sit-and-switch strokes using a paddle properly sized for your upper body. As others have mentioned, that 55" bent-shaft...

If you include whitewater paddling the answer is not straightforward, amateurish pun intended. But at my age I wouldn't be planning on any whitewater, maybe some Class I or low Class 2 stuff but mostly flat water. There are some nice ponds and lakes to visit as well as bottom-land rivers and...

Good on you for reclaiming a bit of ground from the knotweed invasion. Go Canada!

It's described as "The Overhead Carry" in Lou Glaros & Charlie Wilson's book "Freestyle Canoeing - Contemporary Paddling Technique". I use a modified technique, which uses different hand holds and is more comfortable to carry in my opinion. I call it the shoulder carry. And I don't carry our...

And you can store the pad right behind you on a seat rail or a thwart. I typically kneel in my solo canoes with bench seats so don't knock the pad off while sitting, but using a thwart works good too.

Nope, it's for short carries on moderately level ground, no steep hills. If the wind is really blowing I drape the canoe on my shoulder. On longer carries I use a removable yoke, the one Northstar sells. It's fairly lightweight and works well with wood gunwales.

So here's how the modifications work with a solo carry... With the pad in place it's fairly easy to hoist the canoe up on my shoulder and grab a thwart or the gunnel: Here you can see how I cut the thicker section of the pad so it fits up against the hull in the tumblehome and the strip I...