riverman wrote:
Ken Fortenberry wrote:
I agree with everything except the 17' length. A 17' tandem
is more canoe than I care to paddle solo, I wouldn't buy a
tandem canoe much over 16' for solo paddling/fishing. ...

Yeah, I agree that there's some discussion on the 16' vs 17' length to
be had. I find a 16' boat a tad on the crowded side for tandem
tripping,

It depends on the size of the paddlers and the boat I guess.
My bow man (wife ;-), is 5'7" 135 lbs., Kipper the Hound is
70 lbs. and I'm 5'11" 220ish, we all fit into my Navigator 16
with room for a weekend's worth of gear. Anything longer than
a couple of days we paddle an 18'6" Wenonah Odyssey.

but a 17' is certainly a bit long for a solo boat (although
my first love was a Blue Hole 17A that I put a lot of solo miles on).

Well, a lot of high volume solo expedition boats and solo
performance boats are 17' or even longer but I'm talking
about trying to paddle a beamy 17' tandem solo and for me
that trick never works. Wasn't the Blue Hole a whitewater
boat ?

I think the OP should put a lot of thought into how much solo vs
tandem paddling he is truly planning to do, and with how much gear.

Agreed. Either that or adopt the Wayne Knight method of gear
shopping, that is, buy both ! ;-)

--
Ken Fortenberry