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I'm not a flat water Olympic paddler but the high-kneel position in a needle boat doesn't seem comparable to a typical solo recreational cruising canoe, which I do paddle. I've tried straight blades for cruising but always come back to a bent blade paddle for putting in the miles. That's me...

Does your paddle touch the hull? Not very often; mainly to do a stronger stern correction/rudder in wind and waves on a lake if the canoe gets pushed off course by a gust and I want to get it back on track quickly. But I try to work with the wind/waves and that involves switching sides after...

To reduce the risk of a canoe sliding forward in a hard stop I made some "hood" loops that fit under our hatchback door and use a NRS strap to loop around both sides of the canoe seat and through the rear "hood" loop. Creates a nice compact triangle that should also help with side-to-side drift...

Interesting test, Alan. I don't race so the benefits in speed of one type of paddle over another isn't as important to me as having a paddle that works best for the type of canoe and conditions I'm paddling. I tend to bring two different styles of paddle, a 48" - 49" carbon bent shaft for...

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...