Thanks for that Marc. I think the OP would want a boat that is stable when leaned to the rail and not squirrely. What boats do you solo guys recommend for him.
I have no interests in promoting any designer's or manufacturer's canoes. I can, however, relate what I have experienced and witnessed over 45 years of observing, and occasionally participating in, sport canoeing and freestyle canoeing—which are the quiet water boat control disciplines where heeling to the gunwale is practiced and taught.
Of course, what is now called freestyle can be done in almost any solo canoe, and many students use many different canoes. But here's my observation of the solo canoes that have been most popular, historically, among serious practioners of sport canoeing and then freestyle.
As
@stevet related above, in the mid-80s and early 90s it was Mike Galt's flared canoes such as the Egret, which could be paddled solo or tandem. In the early 90s Charlie Wilson spec'ed and Dave Yost designed the Fire series for Bell, which had freestyle heel to the gunwale ability as a specifically designed feature. The Flashfire was for small folks, the Wildfire for mid-size folks, and the Starfire for tandem or a big solo. The Fire boats were subsequenly made by Placid, Colden and now Swift. They are still popular among freestylers, and I recall Cliff Jacobson using a Wildfire on some of his Canadian wilderness trips.
Sometime in the 90s, Tom MacKenzie, a freestyle ITE and one of the founders of the WCHA, began making wood/Dacron sisters of the Fire series. The Nakoma, Aria and Duet were sisters of the Flashfire, Wildfire and Starfire. Tom made them specifically with freestyle in mind and they, along with the Fire series, seemed to predominate among freestyle paddlers until Tom passed away in 2015.
About that time,
@Marc Ornstein, who had been winning freestyle championships in his own canoe designs, began designing canoes for Savage River, which has a long history of manufacturing very light racing canoes. The June Bug is sort of the analog of the Flashfire/Nakoma and the Illusion is sort of the analog of the Wildfire/Aria. These Savage River canoes have become quite coveted by serious freestylers because they were designed specifically for freestyle maneuvers including heeling predictably to the rail.
I have both a Bell Wildfire and a Savage River Illusion. They are both great boats, but at 81 I wanted a maneuverable canoe even lighter than my 35 lb. Wildfire, and my Illusion with a wood thwart, wood outwale strips, and Conk's lightest weight 10" seat weighs 21.8 lbs. Savage River can make a 16 lb. Illusion with their lightest layup, all carbon thwarts, no gunwales, and a 8" Conk seat or a carbon seat. I like the look of the wood trim, and wanted a layup that can ram over logs and beaver dams in the Pine Barrens and Adirondack streams.
It is easy to rail both the Wildfire and Illusion. The Illusion may be more solid in that respect because it is not a shouldered canoe. The Illusion turns a bit better than the Wildfire, so I like it a bit better on twisty streams like the Pine Barrens. But is a bit less capacious, so the Wildfire might be a better overnight tripping canoe for a larger person with a lot of gear. The Illusion is a bit faster and more acceleratable because it is a bit narrower than the Wildfire.
In sum, my experience is that the premiere "nail to the rail" solo canoes among freestylers, historically, have been the Mike Galt flared Lotus canoes, the Fire series, the MacKenzie wood/Dacron canoes, and now the Savage River June Bug and Illusion. Only the Fire boats and Savage Rivers are in current production, but Swift doesn't push or even advertise their Fire canoes nor can Swift match the light weight of Savage River's race-formulated technology.
