What are your current solo canoes and how do you like them?

[ABT]

What's the layup? Are you worried about impacts or the scrape and grind on Ozark streams?

The Clippers are both their Duraflex layup with an added layer of 6oz S glass on the outside for extra abrasion resistance. The scraping will be the most common concern, but there are rock gardens on certain streams where impacts will also be an issue. The video below is a stream pretty close to me at a normal water level, and you can see some of the areas that might be a problem if you pick a bad line (if the level were lower) at around 30-50 seconds in. At higher flows gelcoat would be fine. Scraping on gelcoat doesn’t bother me too much aside from the looks but TSE gelcoat can spall off in harder impacts especially at the stems.

 

[Black_Fly]

I got into solo canoes late in life, and had some gems. Torn up a couple. One factor for me is stability with a shifty 55 lb herd dog. I loved my NS Magic, but it was too round where the dingo sat - I felt every shift - not fun in rough seas. I tried a couple 15’ tandem prospectors, which were fine but heavy for my old body. I’ve whittled down my herd to 2 lightweight boats, a tripper and a rocky stream boat, Northstar NW Solo Kevlar CF trim and an Esquire Echo 2.0 (Tformex). I think that’s all I need from here on. If I didn’t have a dog, I’d probably still have the Magic and possibly a Phoenix for rivers. Those were probably my favorite handlers without the mutt.