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Hemlock SRT Ordered

Out of curiosity, are you able to elaborate on the ways in which Harold Deal felt the Dragonfly was flawed and how the SRT improved on it?

Maybe "flawed" is not quite the right word.

Remember, the Dragonfly was designed as a whitewater racing canoe, particularly for the "combined class" whitewater event in which the canoe must compete in the whitewater slalom race as well as the whitewater downriver race. Therefore, the Dragonfly was not optimized to have either a slalom hull (with a lot of rocker) or a downriver hull (with little rocker and a long waterline). It is a compromise whitewater hull. In addition, it was not designed to have a lot of volume to carry tripping loads because there are no loads carried in a race. Racers want as light a canoe as possible.

So, after a few years, Harold was not satisfied with the Dragonfly as either a whitewater slalom/play canoe, as his racing career wound down, because it was too long and simply doesn't have enough rocker to be a whitewater play boat. He was also not satisfied with it as a river and lake tripping canoe because he preferred a tripping canoe to have differential rocker, to be longer than the Dragonfly, and to have more and a differently distributed interior volume than the Dragonfly. In addition, he wanted a canoe that was more stable and "sit-able" for sit & switch paddling than the Dragonfly.

What Harold eventually did in the 90's was to design two different canoes—one for dedicated play in hard whitewater (3-5), the Shaman; and one for tripping on a combination of mild whitewater (1-easy 3) and lakes, the SRT. Both are asymmetrical whereas the Dragonfly is symmetrical. The Shaman and SRT share basically the same three foot mid-section while the two ends and rocker are quite different in all respects. He felt that he now had two canoes that were fully optimized for his two paddling interests: whitewater slalom and "hot" play boating, and efficient lake/river tripping with the capacity for heavy loads.

...which makes it sound to me like you feel the SRT is less responsive than the Wildfire—do I understand that correctly?

Paddled empty by someone less than 200 pounds, I find the Wildfire to be more maneuverable and easier to rail than the SRT. As further evidence of this, the Wildfire, Flashfire and Starfire have all been staples of Freestyle paddlers for decades, along with their wood/canvas close-clones made made by Tom MacKenzie. I've never seen anyone paddle an SRT in a Freestyle competition. In fact, after attending my first Freestyle symposium in my SRT in 2009, I immediately went out and bought a used Wildfire because that elliptical hull is so much more amenable to Freestyle turning maneuvers, especially because of it's railed stability for two-knees-in-chine and high-knee railed turns.

On the other hand, if you are tripping with a heavy load, the SRT's greater length, depth and interior volume will retain a lot more freeboard than the Wildfire. Thus, I'd say the SRT may become more maneuverable when the total paddler+gear load starts to exceed about 260 lbs. because the Wildfire's symmetrical rocker will become submerged under heavy loads and bog down it's turnability.

I’ve read that the SRT is very tender too, but if it is even only a little bit less tender than the Dragonfly, then that might make a big difference. But, I'm also not sure how big a deal this really would be

The SRT was designed mainly as a kneeling canoe but with a definite alternate ability to be seated in milder wave/wind conditions. I and many SRT paddlers have installed foot braces for seated paddling. However, once wind, waves or some whitewater shows up, I immediately go down onto my knees. I have even installed thigh straps for whitewater paddling and even use them when I'm in somewhat scary wind waves on lakes.

I only paddled a Dragonfly once about 40 years ago, but I categorize it as a kneeling canoe, as all canoes designed for whitewater are. I suppose a light paddler with excellent balance could sit in a Dragonfly, as he or she could sit in a whitewater play boat for short periods on smooth water, but I suspect the SRT is noticeably friendlier for seated paddling than the Dragonfly. I definitely recall Conk standing in his SRT at times during our Pine Barrens trip.

In this picture you can see the bottom parts of my un-fastex-buckled thigh straps:

SRT thigh straps.JPG

In this one you can see my Wenonah foot bar and one of the unbuckled thigh strap ends:

SRT foot brace.JPG
 
This is a very interesting thread. I had been considering an SRT, but I ended up with a Northstar Phoenix instead. Right now the SRT sort of fits between niches in my current quiver of canoes.

Hey Glenn, how are you liking the Fastex fastened thigh straps? On most of my thigh straps I use Velcro closures, but on my first canoe, a fiberglass Hahn designed C1 from the '70s , I had thigh straps made from the seatbelt from a GM car, complete with the GM steel flip up buckle! It always worked.
 
Hey Glenn, how are you liking the Fastex fastened thigh straps? On most of my thigh straps I use Velcro closures, but on my first canoe, a fiberglass Hahn designed C1 from the '70s , I had thigh straps made from the seatbelt from a GM car, complete with the GM steel flip up buckle! It always worked.

I never used 1" Fastex buckles as my quick release mechanism on any of my five dedicated whitewater canoes. Two of them had Perception saddles. Two have 2" Fastex buckles, and one has a double quick release of a 2" Fastex buckle plus a seat belt flip-up buckle. I've never used Velcro.

My SRT is only in whitewater a very small percentage of time and I don't use the thigh straps very often, so I don't think there's much risk of danger in a 1" Fastex buckle breaking. The top parts of my SRT straps include 2" foam pads that brace the thighs. You don't see the top parts in the picture I posted because, when I'm not using the straps (95% of the time), I stuff those parts behind the large drop blocks of the adjustable Deal bucket seat.
 
I cannot figure out how to quote a portion of a message! So I'll do it this way: Somewhere above I read:

As further evidence of this, the Wildfire, Flashfire and Starfire have all been staples of Freestyle paddlers for decades, along with their wood/canvas close-clones made made by Tom MacKenzie. I've never seen anyone paddle an SRT in a Freestyle competition.

I'm sure the fact that the SRT is long and narrow, plus especially because it has asymmetric rocker, it's limited in its freestyle appeal. Another limiting factor is the width of the "floor"; the SRT and Dragonfly are a bit too narrow for many to turn sideways and fit their legs while seated transversely. I have been struggling with this in my FlashFIRE as well. I'm hoping if I can ever spend time in a WildFIRE again or in a Phoenix to play around with that a bit more (preferably when it is warmer, because I'm sure I will go for a swim while playing around with it! 🤣😂)

As an aside, does anyone here have experience with the Merrimack Baboosic? They have a wooden - ribbed but carbon/Kevlar skinned boat for sale right now that reportedly only weighs about 35 pounds. That's getting close to an Expedition Kevlar WildFIRE and is well less than an IXP Phoenix. I wonder if they're comparable boats?
 
I cannot figure out how to quote a portion of a message! So I'll do it this way: Somewhere above I read:

As further evidence of this, the Wildfire, Flashfire and Starfire have all been staples of Freestyle paddlers for decades, along with their wood/canvas close-clones made made by Tom MacKenzie. I've never seen anyone paddle an SRT in a Freestyle competition.

I'm sure the fact that the SRT is long and narrow, plus especially because it has asymmetric rocker, it's limited in its freestyle appeal. Another limiting factor is the width of the "floor"; the SRT and Dragonfly are a bit too narrow for many to turn sideways and fit their legs while seated transversely. I have been struggling with this in my FlashFIRE as well. I'm hoping if I can ever spend time in a WildFIRE again or in a Phoenix to play around with that a bit more (preferably when it is warmer, because I'm sure I will go for a swim while playing around with it! 🤣😂)

As an aside, does anyone here have experience with the Merrimack Baboosic? They have a wooden - ribbed but carbon/Kevlar skinned boat for sale right now that reportedly only weighs about 35 pounds. That's getting close to an Expedition Kevlar WildFIRE and is well less than an IXP Phoenix. I wonder if they're comparable boats?
Oh - Glenn I see it was you who posted that - you know all of this FAR better than I do, hopefully my reply didn't come across as belittling! I most certainly didn't intend it as such whatsoever!
 
I cannot figure out how to quote a portion of a message!

You highlight the words you want to quote and then press the Reply button that pops up. That puts the quoted words into the text entry box for you.

If you want to quote more than one passage from the same person, as I am doing now, or passages from different persons, you use the +Quote (multiquote) button that pops up. It's all explained in detail HERE.

As an aside, does anyone here have experience with the Merrimack Baboosic?

It's sort of a scaled down Prospector that is very maneuverable. Tim Burris is a big fan of the canoe. Here is his review from p.com:

"Great Boat! Graceful. Beautiful. Wonderful workmanship. I originally purchased a used Baboosic because I wanted to experiment with freestyle canoeing. This is a great boat for freestyle, and I have since bought a second one. That should tell you how highly I think of this boat. The Baboosic is considered a big boat by a lot of freestylers, but I am 6 feet and 180# and have no problem getting a vertical paddle, even with cross strokes. I am able to kneel transversely, which lets me get both knees near the gunnels comfortably. This boat exudes confidence at the rails. On edge, I can do stem-to-stem sweeps and literally turn on a dime. I can take it past the rails and let water slip in with confidence.

"My first Baboosic had been used on rivers quite a bit and has a few scars to prove it. It is an excellent creek boat. I now use that boat on any river where I don’t expect to bash into rocks. Because of its maneuverability, you can work around the obstacles, negating the need of a Royalex boat. I would think it ideal for small twisty streams like the Pine Barrens, I just haven’t paddled them. It is fun for eddy turns and peel outs. I kept my Royalex Bell Wildfire (with air bags) for Class II and rocks. Otherwise, moving water is a great place for the Baboosic.

"I had read the reviews about how the Baboosic was surprisingly fast on flat water. I was skeptical, but was also surprised the first time I took it out on the lake with a kayaker. No, it won't set any speed records, and it won't glide like a dedicated lake boat; but for a jack-of-all-trades it is fast. A good forward stroke will pay dividends.

"So now I have two Baboosics. One for moving water, and one for freestyle and lakes. If you want a great turning boat that travels across flat water and can carry a load, the Baboosic fits the bill."


Tim subsequentlly won medals, including the gold, in the Interpretive Freestyle National Championship paddling a Baboosic. Here he is in 2011:


Tim also has owned a Wildfire, Starfire, Dragonfly and probably other canoes, and could give you a good comparison. If you want to contact Tim, his email is near the bottom of this page:

 
Oh Tim is AWESOME - I attended his Functional Freestyle workshop this past year and was very impressed with the every aspect of the weekend! Cannot wait to go back again this year!

Tim is a very good paddler, teacher and nice guy, whom I first met at the Adirondack Freestyle Symposium in 2009.

Three years ago, I drove to his house in Pennsylvania with a potential intent of buying his Colden Starfire, which he had put up for sale. After test paddling it on a local lake (with Tim in a Dragonfly), I didn't think it was quite right for my daughter and granddaughter so I ended up not buying it. Tim told me he had had the Starfire made to replace his Baboosic for his freestyle routines, but that he later decided to return to his Baboosic for freestyle and, in the meantime, had entered the cult of the Dragonfly for recreational paddling.

Here's the soloized Starfire Tim had for sale in 2021. I don't know if he sold it.

Starfire 5.jpg
 
Maybe "flawed" is not quite the right word.

Remember, the Dragonfly was designed as a whitewater racing canoe, particularly for the "combined class" whitewater event in which the canoe must compete in the whitewater slalom race as well as the whitewater downriver race. Therefore, the Dragonfly was not optimized to have either a slalom hull (with a lot of rocker) or a downriver hull (with little rocker and a long waterline). It is a compromise whitewater hull. In addition, it was not designed to have a lot of volume to carry tripping loads because there are no loads carried in a race. Racers want as light a canoe as possible.

So, after a few years, Harold was not satisfied with the Dragonfly as either a whitewater slalom/play canoe, as his racing career wound down, because it was too long and simply doesn't have enough rocker to be a whitewater play boat. He was also not satisfied with it as a river and lake tripping canoe because he preferred a tripping canoe to have differential rocker, to be longer than the Dragonfly, and to have more and a differently distributed interior volume than the Dragonfly. In addition, he wanted a canoe that was more stable and "sit-able" for sit & switch paddling than the Dragonfly.

What Harold eventually did in the 90's was to design two different canoes—one for dedicated play in hard whitewater (3-5), the Shaman; and one for tripping on a combination of mild whitewater (1-easy 3) and lakes, the SRT. Both are asymmetrical whereas the Dragonfly is symmetrical. The Shaman and SRT share basically the same three foot mid-section while the two ends and rocker are quite different in all respects. He felt that he now had two canoes that were fully optimized for his two paddling interests: whitewater slalom and "hot" play boating, and efficient lake/river tripping with the capacity for heavy loads.



Paddled empty by someone less than 200 pounds, I find the Wildfire to be more maneuverable and easier to rail than the SRT. As further evidence of this, the Wildfire, Flashfire and Starfire have all been staples of Freestyle paddlers for decades, along with their wood/canvas close-clones made made by Tom MacKenzie. I've never seen anyone paddle an SRT in a Freestyle competition. In fact, after attending my first Freestyle symposium in my SRT in 2009, I immediately went out and bought a used Wildfire because that elliptical hull is so much more amenable to Freestyle turning maneuvers, especially because of it's railed stability for two-knees-in-chine and high-knee railed turns.

On the other hand, if you are tripping with a heavy load, the SRT's greater length, depth and interior volume will retain a lot more freeboard than the Wildfire. Thus, I'd say the SRT may become more maneuverable when the total paddler+gear load starts to exceed about 260 lbs. because the Wildfire's symmetrical rocker will become submerged under heavy loads and bog down it's turnability.



The SRT was designed mainly as a kneeling canoe but with a definite alternate ability to be seated in milder wave/wind conditions. I and many SRT paddlers have installed foot braces for seated paddling. However, once wind, waves or some whitewater shows up, I immediately go down onto my knees. I have even installed thigh straps for whitewater paddling and even use them when I'm in somewhat scary wind waves on lakes.

I only paddled a Dragonfly once about 40 years ago, but I categorize it as a kneeling canoe, as all canoes designed for whitewater are. I suppose a light paddler with excellent balance could sit in a Dragonfly, as he or she could sit in a whitewater play boat for short periods on smooth water, but I suspect the SRT is noticeably friendlier for seated paddling than the Dragonfly. I definitely recall Conk standing in his SRT at times during our Pine Barrens trip.

In this picture you can see the bottom parts of my un-fastex-buckled thigh straps:

View attachment 139650

In this one you can see my Wenonah foot bar and one of the unbuckled thigh strap ends:

View attachment 139651

Thanks for the extra detail, Glenn. It is really interesting to hear a little more about Harold Deal’s thought process and your impressions of the SRT and Wildfire!

I hope to try out an SRT for myself someday—I really like the concept of it, and it sounds fun to paddle—but from your description, if I were choosing between the SRT and the Dragonfly, it sounds like I might like the Dragonfly better. By the time I can afford either, my tastes might change, but my current thinking is that I want something that’s narrower, faster, more responsive, and has a little more volume than my Yellowstone Solo—narrower because I have short arms, faster for paddling upstream and keeping up with tandem canoes, more responsive for having fun fooling around on day trips, and with more volume for carrying gear on overnights without (hopefully) making the canoe feel bogged down. And based on my experiences with the canoes I’ve tried (which admittedly is not all that many), I think I prefer symmetrical rocker.

Thanks again!
 
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