I had the Mad River Canoe catalogs when I was a teenager and to this day, many years later, I think of Mad Rivers as the perfect image of a canoe, even more so than a wood canvas OT or Chestnut. The Explorer, Malecite, Lamoille, TW, etc are what I think of when I see the word "canoe". I have an old FG Malecite in the shed that I love to paddle but weighs a lot at 75#. Even after paddling faster and lighter boats from other companies I still dig these old Vermont MRs.