This discussion has moved way past a WTB Peregrine into design, construction and lamination choices.
Design: The Peregrine was splashed off a Fiberglass Curtis Nomad, now offered by Colden, with some stem layout added. The resulting hull is flatter in the bottom than the original Yost design and has less rocker. Of some interest, Yost designed later versions of the same "Solo Tripper" concept for Bell as the Merlin II in the 96 and for Swift as the Keewaydin 15 in 2011. His son, Carl, just finished the slightly shorter, wider, 14.5 Phoenix and an un-named 15.5X 30, Merlin III?, for Bell Composites. Rocker has increased over time to improve speed and maneuverability, and the rocker is now differential to counter the sins common to most forward strokes. There are those who contend DY has learned nothing through his thirty five years of boat designing. They are mistaken.
Stiff hulls are faster than flexible ones. We have thousands of individual examples in ICF, and USCA race boats, not to mention rowing shells. There are a couple ways to eliminate flex: more fabric in the bottom or a cored bottom. The cored bottom is lighter but somewhat more fragile than thicker fabric. After selecting the best core material to minimize lamination, shear and buckling failure, the trick is increasing beam thickness. Doubling the hull's thickness yields a 3.5 X strength increase and a 7X increase in bending resistance. Quadrupling the bottom thickness yields 10X strength and 37X bending resistance increases. Those are facts, from Fundamentals of Composites Manufacturing, but the paddling community is a belief based society. Colden manages to eliminate bottom flex the old way, with fabric, and at acceptable weight due to infusion processing and integral rails.
Which fabrics and how they're laminated are additional factors. There are two concepts in armor lamination. One features high modulus, or compression strength, materials on the side presented to impact deflect and high tensile strength materials on the inside. This is the Bell canoeworks Black/Gold concept currently used in combat armor. The second is to encapsulate compression resistance material within high tensile strength layers to increase abrasion resistance at the cost of increased weight. F1 car chassis use this encapsulation mode. Bi weaves have no place in either scheme, they incorporate modulus and tensile strengths in the same layer, where half the material does not perform optimally. Note, the old and current Bell "tweeds" are all Kevlar, not bi-weaves at all. In a perfect world we want S glass or carbon in our outer layers and aramid Kevlar/Twaron, in our inner layers. Spread tow carbon will be replacing twist spun, woven carbon because it is stronger and stiffer. Higher tensile strength items like Spectra/Dyneema, Zylon and Vectran have characteristics that compromise their use. That will change, M 5 may replace carbon and aramid and Innegra may replace aramid, but not just yet.
Complicating fabric lamination schedule design is resin characteristics. A good resin for an all carbon boat should be fairly stiff while a rsin for an all Kevlar canoe might be pretty flexible, both matching the elongation to breakage characteristics of their fibers. When both fibers are used in a lamination some adjustments will need be made, usually a resin with stretch characteristics about half way in between is chosen by more sophisticated builders.
How the hull is assembled is another important consideration. Lots of good hulls were made by hand lamination. Sure, there are air inclusions, but a careful laminator generally produces good hulls. Wet bagging was first imported from the aero-space industry by Crozier, and then used by WeNoNah before spreading to Bell, Savage, Sawyer and others. The hull is hand laminated with slow catalyzation, a perforated ply lain in, then a bleeder blanket followed by the nylon bag. Vacuum pressure forces resin through the perforations into the blanket, which is discarded when the hull catalyzes. Voids and resin content were greatly improved compared to hand lamination but variation remains due to sketchy catalyzation control. Infusion is a simpler process developed by Lotus autosport and Seemans. The hull pieces/parts are placed in the hull dry, a release ply is applied and a measured amount of resin is pulled through the fabric and foam by vacuum. Voids are further eliminated and resin content further lowered with precise repeatability. The next step, using prepreg fabrics in a vacuum autoclave, is too pricey in fabric and equipment for recreational paddlesports. Hemlock and Sawyer hand laminate. Bell, Wenonah, GRB Newman and Souris wet bag. Colden, H2O, Placid, Savage and Swift infuse and Bell will soon. Several Canadian manufacturers use the word "fusion" with great imprecision; sometimes meaning infused hulls, sometimes oven cured, sometimes something unexplained.
Those wishing to make lighter hulls use modern, lighter weight materials, and wet or, better, dry bag them to reduce weight, and may even use a core to increase bottom stiffness to improve performance. Using cored, integral rails further reduces hull weight. But, unwilling to bag or use cores, the remaining course is to use less fabric. That often results in an overly flexible hull.
The great John Winters was once queried about his hull designs being built in the US by a manufacturer who used minimal fabric and flexible resin. It was over lunch, and John gouged a hole in the table with his fork emphasising that he wasn't going to allow his hulls to be compromised by the builder's "manufacturing deficiencies". I've seen the table; it sports a hole that could spill one's coffee cup.
So here is a little primer on solo tripper design, lamination design and process from a guy who's been a principal in two canoe companies, written dimensional specs for over a dozen canoes and designed lamination schedules for twenty years. Hopefully it provides some professional rationalization of confirmation-biased responses. Anecdotal experience is always questionable evidence. All that said, it doesn't make all that much difference which design or build-quality one selects, most everything on the market floats, will put the buyer on the water safely, and will paddle adequately to have fun. Alternatively, for those dedicated to lighter, stronger, faster, several of the choices are almost mandated.
Another issue, that should be addressed is fit. Height and weight are important, but the real deal is getting both knees comfortably into the chines with one's sitz bones on the seat, although that triangulation can be adjusted with seat drops and knee pad thickness. Peregrine and Nomad 28.5 inches wide, same width as FlashFire. DY's more recent solo trippers are wider, 29, now 30" wide, reflecting a super-sizing paddler pool. Wenonah's Wilderness is 30.5 wide, and Bell's lamented RockStar was a full 31, but the market seems slow to respond to taller paddlers with longer thighs and, maybe, wider knees. Who knows??
bon chance!