C-Forum

Yeah, you don't want a big pool of Vynabond sitting in prolonged contact with your hull since the methyl ethyl ketone in it can eat into the hull. You also want to allow enough time for the solvent in the Vynabond to "degas" before joining the patch to the hull. If you wait too long and the Vynabond...

I've been pretty satisfied using Vynabond to glue vinyl D ring patches to the inside of Royalex boats as long as the grey vinyl inner layer is still intact. I have found it generally pretty easy to remove the patches when necessary, without damaging the hull by carefully heating the patch with a hea...

I haven't used them. I paddled Tom Foster's glass Outrage proto outfitted with hip pads for a day. Tom swore by them. They felt a little wierd to me, as one might expect. I don't think it was long enough to be able to appreciate any benefit, especially considering I was paddling an unfamiliar boat. ...

A set of dumbells is very good. Do dumbell presses, front raises, side raises, bent over rowing and flys, supine (bench) presses, and standing shoulder shrugs. Also good is if you can get some surgical rubber tubing or some stretchy rubber sheet called "Theraband". Physical therapists use this stuff...

Radicle refers to a nerve root (Latin: radix=root) and pathy refers to suffering or disease (Greek: pathos=suffering) so radiculopathy refers to any disease afflicting a nerve root or roots. Nerve roots emerge from the spinal cord along its length and join together to form nerve trunks, divisions, c...

more likely to take in water over the bow deck plate when forward surfing a wave or going through a big wave train. Once I got used to the harder chines, I found it fairly easy to go through wave trains sideways, leaning the boat to block water entry. If the chine caught an "unfor" (unforseen rock) ...

I believe that to be generally true, and yet there seem to be accomplished C1 and even OC1 boaters who can easily roll their boats who have difficulty rolling a kayak.

Does anyone have a glass Viper 12 (or Viper 11, or Probe for that matter) from Clipper Canoe? There are a few very positive comments about the Viper archived here. For those who have one, did you buy it new from Clipper, and if you did, did you go to Canada to pick it up? I did own a Royalex Mohawk ...

If you are a newbie to whitewater in addition to saddle placement, I would suggest you keep your boat neutral to slightly bow light. I saw a lot of beginning boaters trim their boats very bow light. This provided an illusion of dryness going through big wave trains, but really messed up control. If ...

I paddle open boats and kayaks on whitewater and flatwater. I have several times borrowed friends' C1s and paddled them for a few days but could never get comfortable in a low kneeling postion. I started out flatwater canoeing and canoe camping, moved to the Southeast years ago and got involved in w...

I had a yellow Viper 12 and foolishly sold it.

Shoulda sold one of my daughters instead.

I'm envious. I knew I should have gone.

I am also a big fan of the Encore, and still paddle one. Some of the other WW OC's I have owned or still own are the Dagger Impulse, Caper, Caption, Ocoee, and Prophet, the Mohawk XL 13 and Viper 12, Blue Hole Sunburst II, Whitesell Piranha, and the Mad River Outrage. I have paddled many others at l...

If you don't want to spend that much you can make your own out of 2 inch wide tubular nylon webbing, 2 inch Fastex buckles and 2 inch triglides and large D ring patches.

I find that the Velcro quick release straps pick up dirt and lose their grip sooner than I'd like.

As has been said, putty knives, paint scrapers, heat guns, acetone and MEK can all be usedl with caution. As long as you don't leave acetone or MEK pooled in your canoe you are probably OK. If you use either and rub hard you will take off the grey inner layer of your Royalex. Acetone evaporates a bi...