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I doubt I'll ever be traveling with it in the future but anytime you want to come down to Estherville you're welcome to try it out. Alan

Back in the day I had a couple J-boats I didn't trust myself to keep upright and I also had a great little dog that loved to paddle and I felt guilty every time I took the j-boats out for training paddles. I wanted something in between a fast tripper and a USCA C1 and couldn't find anything that...

I think you will. I've haven't met a much nicer bunch of people than the ones I met when I was canoe racing. I don't know what kind of racing is available in your neck of the woods but Minnesota has a good core group of paddlers and there are regular races through the season around Minnesota and...

I'm not sure what versions Sawyer is selling now. The last one I bought, about 10 years ago, was kind of difficult to find as it did not seem to be the most popular one. I specifically got it because it used the same large filter as their gravity filter setup and was easily removed. My initial...

It will come with practice. I tend to be a slow twitch muscle guy too but have no problem paddling a canoe at 60 spm over long distances and quicker than that over short distances. Once you get used to it I find it's considerably less tiring. A short stroke seems to use more of your core muscles...

I don't know. I hear stacked hands preached often but rarely see it practiced. Andy Triebold, another great paddler, doesn't seem to do much stacking either. Nor do I see much torso rotation.

I've heard plenty of people say hip rotation is important but when I watch the top paddlers I just can't see them doing it. I can see it coming more into play with a double blade and I found in kayaks that core rotation was important. Never could make it work in canoes though. Serge Corbin is...

This is something I've never really felt like is a thing with canoe paddling. Maybe more so with kayaks but I've never felt the benefit with the canoe stroke nor does it appear most other paddlers use it either from what I can see. But I was never a good racer so maybe that's what was holding me...

I think this deserves repeating. I also am not a very outgoing or gregarious person and always felt very welcome at any canoeing event I've attended as well as all online canoeing groups and forums. I've found people are eager to share what they know. I've also seen, at times, an air of...

I haven't done it yet but I think I would appreciate having bow and stern lines of different color. More than once I've been holding both in one hand and when it comes time to separate them again it takes a moment to figure out what goes where. Alan

I used to paddle the same stretch of river 3-5 times per week. I knew it so well that if I was paddling in the dark without a moon I could avoid obstacles I couldn't see. But I still noticed regular changes. Changes due to water level. Changes due to season. Changes due to floods. Changes due to...

I usually have enough scrap plywood or thick foam to cut a couple of inverted canoe forms (use existing forms as a pattern). I screw these to the strongback and the hull sits in them. Like Stripperguy I'm not much of a scraper. I'll use a scraper for chisel for the few really high spots or...

Another good one: https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/skid-plates-an-evolution.17299/

A couple layers of S-glass would be good. A layer of Dynel would be better depending on how rough the hull is being treated. Use peel ply on either one to help with a smooth transition to the hull. Either can be painted afterwards. There are some great tutorials on this site. These are the first...

I guess that's why they don't come out with new models every year and tend to keep selling the same ones for years and years. Alan

I've only made one boat with a foam core and I also wondered if I should do foam ribs or not. My boat was relatively small and would not see much abuse so I decided that when I laid the interior cloth instead of using one piece of cloth I would use multiple pieces with about 12 inches of...

After hearing you say Temagami in the video I realized I've been saying it incorrectly in my head for years. Thanks for straightening me out. And thanks for sharing the trip report! Alan

No experience with that sort of filter. I've always just used a Sawyer filter bottle with a straw. Fill and suck. Simple and easy. Takes a couple weeks for it to restrict to the point it needs to be backflushed, which is easy enough to do in the field. Alan

Yes, that was my experience as well. I also had difficulty removing the excess resin that would get trapped in the bottom layer without squeezing too much out of the top layer. The excess resin did not want to flow through the layers of cloth but rather I had to push it all the way to the edge...

It looks very good so far. I am always disappointed with how much resin it takes for carbon and Kevlar if not infused or vacuum bagged. Did you hand laminate both layers at once? I have found that to be very difficult with carbon and Kevlar but pretty easy with fiberglass. I have a very messy...