I finally had took the Noah Canoah America C2 down the Ottawa last weekend, and it went surpisingly well, considering that Isaac, the bow paddler is actually a kayaker (a pretty good and more importantly fearless one
) and only started cboating 3 nonth ago and had previously ran the Ottawa only 3 times in a C1, albthough numerou times in a yak. It was the first time we took that boat down serious whitewater.We previously paddled the C2 once on the black river in Ontario near Wshago, a mellow class 1-2 run and practiced rolling it 2 or 3 times on weeknights in Kempenfelt Bay in Barrie.
According to what Vladimir Vanha from Noah e-mailed me we are also too heavy for the boat, as he recommends a max weight for the bow paddler of ~155 to 160 lbs , while Isaac weighs ~175 lbs, while I am ~185-190 lbs, but the trim of the boat does not look too bad and it did not feel to edgy to us, so the rating may be a bit on the conservative side.
The boat is VERY fast, we tried to thread the needle between Sattlers and Phils, 2 sizeable holes right at the beginning of the first rapid, McKoys, and made it with room to spare. we got thumbs up for our line (just for the record, when I am in my Delirious C1 I usually dont make it over in time and drop into Phil's for the first sound thrashing of the day
). We flipped on the eddyline however we were abvle to pull off our first tandem combat roll however (we roll on the right side, I set up and then wait for Isaac to change side and start initiating the roll). We pulled into the eddy below 7-up and tried to ferry over to corner wave (the current does a hard right hand turn there around Center Island) however we flipped there in the boils and our rolling attempts were out of synch, so we both ran out of air and bailed.
Once we were on shore and back in the boat we ran the left side channel at the bottom of Mc Koys. We ferried a bit at the botytom, to get a better feel for the boats behaviour in bigger and pushier water and surfed a bit in Babyface, which just started to show.
The boat tends, due to it's narrow and fairly low volume bow to pearl, but, probably to the shape of the bow deck and the weight of the 2 paddlers, still front surfs decently.
On the flatwater stretch between Mc Koys and Iron Ring/Little Trickle we left everyone just in the dust, nobody was able to keep up with us, and we were just cruising casually.
Little Trickle as it was really bony at this level and the Room of Doom at Iron Ring looked pretty ugly, so we decided to walk that one.
We got a few nice surfs in at Angels Kiss, walked Garvins and had really nice runs down Upper and Lower Noname, which were both pretty beefy with plenty of big waves and small holes on the way.
Overall I would say it is a great river-runner, maneuvers really well, due to it's short length of only 10'9" and the fact that the cockpits are only 3' apart.
The speed is really surprising, I think it is probably as fast as most tandems in the 14 ft range.
It front surfs surprisingly well despite the fact that the bow pearls, however it is not really a playboat, due to it's displacement hull and overall shape.
It's width of 30" makes it pretty stable, even in big water.
I think it can handkle some moderate creeking, I would however, due to it's relatively low volume bow, not take it down anything more serious.
The factory outfitting is not the greatest. The shape of the foam on the plastic saddle bases leaves to desire.
I think they are to narrow and have a bad shape, both our legs fell asleep after relatively short periods of time.
I think I will rip the foam of the seat bases and make my own wider and better formed saddles. I also made knee cups for it , since before my knees had way too much side toside movement, particularly in the stern, where the hull is much wider than in the bow.
To improve boat control I am also thinking of installing hip pads to the boat.
The single thighstraps seem to work pretty well so far, so I will leave them for now, I may however replace them with a dual strap system in the future, depending on future outings in the boat.
But overall I am very happy with this boat, so far it definitely exceeded my expectations.
martin
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