C-Forum

Paddling is clique-ish. you tend to paddle with your friends and the people you respect and trust inside or outside a club. Paddling style can determine some of that too. A lot of kayakers, and some canoeists for that matter, are river runners and just zip down the river and go home. Others, like my...

So the plate that was added was a polyethylene plate welded to the outside of the hull like Klund recommended?

I've been thinking of some other ideas to try. Two of them involve gluing down with g/flex a plastic plate on the inside of hull as cheajack suggests. Then for the outer hull I'm debating between: 1. Flame treat, cover a large area with thick G/flex (tube), lay on top of that some really light wire ...

Klund, that sounds like a good solution. What's the approximate size of the plate you had welded on? And how many paddling trips do you think you now have on it? Interesting that the Pyranha version is prone to cracking as well. I wonder if that means that the mold is simply designed to produce a hu...

I was out on a creeky summer run yesterday and cracked a Prelude for the third time. All three cracks are in the seat vicinity. Two have been welded. This third one opened up one of the welds and extended the crack. I should add that at 160 pounds, I'm not a heavy guy. Welding obviously isn't enough...

Preludes were listed at around $1500 new with bulkhead outfitting.

It should be okay. In a typical year, we paddle it in August and September and never have to worry about whether there will be water. But this is an atypically low water year so no guarantees. Watch the Copeland gauge ( http://waterdata.usgs.gov/or/nwis/uv/?site_no=14316500&PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060 ...

My wife and I have 5 Preludes, 4 of which have cracked in the last 6 months and two of which have cracked twice now in that time period. Only one of the cracks was legitimate in my mind--a bad eddy move in which I ended up sitting on a very sharp rock. As a result, my confidence in the boat as manu...

From Canoeroots: Esquif Canoes announced this morning that they are back in business and will resume manufacturing canoes in their Frampton, Quebec factory. After filing for bankruptcy in March, president and founder of Esquif Canoes Jacques Chassé told Rapid Media last week that the creditors have ...

Not sure if the Big Octane is synonymous with the Condor. I have seen some videos of the Condor in action and I must admit it looks pretty cool. I think it's 11' long, which by today's standards makes it a long boat. The advantage is going to be hull speed. After paddling the Prelude so long, primar...

I reckon it would be worth trying to meet Milkman in the middle some time to try his Option in case you find it works perfectly well for you A lot of West Coasters will be wanting to try the Option now that we're in the AR (after Royalex) age. The one downside of bulkhead outfitting though is that ...

My favorite canoe for the last 5 or 6 years has been the Esquif Prelude, but with the recent closure of Esquif, the future of the Prelude is in doubt. There's always the chance someone else will decide to pick up the mold and manufacture it. After all, the Prelude was first made by Savage, then Pyra...

Regarding the Genesis - I'm not crazy about it. It's pretty slow for one thing, Don't expect an 11' hull to be faster than a 13' hull. The most important factor in hull speed is hull length. I own a Genesis and two different 11' canoes (Ovation and Ocoee). The Genesis is faster. Now acceleration is...

At 1:20 and 5:50 on this video, https://vimeo.com/44620582, you can see a friend of mine from Alaska running rapids solo on the Yampa in an inflatable canoe. He was having knee problems at the time and borrowed this boat from a friend instead of using a canoe.

If you love Ocoees, I'd recommend calling Nova Craft and seeing if they have any left in stock. If they do, snap a boat up. As for the Ocoee that needs repair, I've seen great results by people buying the thin G/flex (versus thick) and injecting it in a series of holes in the delaminated areas. Dril...