Solo seat

[goonstroke]

... Note that composite and Royalex versions of the “same” canoe are often slightly different in length, the RX Wilderness is shorter than the composite Wilderness. The 17’ Cronje in RX is actually 16’ 8”.
...

Not to go off on a tangent but in terms of matching RX and composite specs I believe Wenonah's hulls are more true than their outfitting. Officially the Wilderness is 15'4" and 27" at the gunwhales. When I got my RX Wilderness it was 15'2" and 29" wide. Basically the thwarts were spreading the rails. When I took the woodwork out for some touchup and measured the relaxed hull it was exactly the official specs.

I now have my thwarts trimmed so it's pretty much at regulation, and I have the front edge of the seat about 9" back from center, vs right at center when it was new. I have no idea what Wenonah is thinking with front edge of the seat at center -- big arse and small feet? Dog and/or Duluth pack behind you and nothing in front?

 

[Guest]

Not to go off on a tangent but in terms of matching RX and composite specs I believe Wenonah's hulls are more true than their outfitting. Officially the Wilderness is 15'4" and 27" at the gunwhales. When I got my RX Wilderness it was 15'2" and 29" wide. Basically the thwarts were spreading the rails.

I love tangents. Going off-on-tangents are us. Sometimes the rails can narrow the achievable sheerline spread in other ways. Mad River’s IQ gunwale systems were so structurally stout in cross section that, for lack of bend-ability, the gunwales pulled in narrower than specs, especially on shorter hulls.

The IQ Freedom solo on the left is 2” narrower than the plain vinyl/aluminum insert gunwaled FS on the right, and kinda flattened along center gunwale.

PC180173 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I now have my thwarts trimmed so it's pretty much at regulation, and I have the front edge of the seat about 9" back from center, vs right at center when it was new. I have no idea what Wenonah is thinking with front edge of the seat at center -- big arse and small feet? Dog and/or Duluth pack behind you and nothing in front?

I wonder too. The Wilderness was kinda billed as a big-boy solo, where the near center seat placement makes even less sense.


Bow backwards, provided the hull doesn’t have bucket seats, or a bow thwart in the way, would work ok, but paddled from the stern seat even with trim weight forward seems like a handful.

so I called wenonah today and spoke to Alison. I pretty much had it figured out already- add weight/ballast to the front. Ideally enough tp paddle from the stern, but reduce weight if I move forward.

Alison is a customer service treasure; I hope Wenonah compensates her well for being the always helpful voice of the company. But, even with trim weight forward 17 feet of canoe is too much for me solo from the stern in anything but the most placid conditions.

The seat in the Spirit II is a good ways back in the stern, and that’s a lot of boat length to try to keep on course in any crossbreeze.


I am eagerly awaiting test paddling results from the stern with gear weight forward, or from a center seat moved back one set of holes 11” aft.

 

[S.Shepherd]

I have some 5gal collapsible water jugs I'm going to use for ballast when I move the middle seat back

 

[alsg]

I have some 5gal collapsible water jugs I'm going to use for ballast when I move the middle seat back

About ballast. My current solution is to use a couple of 20 liter dry bags for water ballast. I generally fill them somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 each. The wide mouth opening is really easy to fill at the put in; just a quick drag of the open bag through the water. Even easier still to dump the ballast at the take out. They fit further up into the canoe's stem than some other solutions and tie in easily. The Sea-to-Summit Big River dry bags I am using have a slick white coating on the interior that seems to be stain resistant/proof and any silt that gets picked up washes out completely and easily when I get home with a quick hosing. That allows the ballast bags to be converted back to be dry bags on those trips when I don't need ballast.