What boat should I buy for this trip?

[Oci-One Kanubi]

Nice to hear from you Jim. If this trip comes off I will leave January 1, 2010; I hope I see you before then!

I'm reading trong support for Bell, Sawyer, and Wenonah composite boats, which was my first impulse, before I started think ABS/whitewater. But over the weekend I traced most of the route using Google Maps' pedometer at http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ and there is very little whitewater that I would run in an ABS tandem whitewater boat but NOT in a kevlar tripping boat (Cucumber, which can be a boatbuster, Railroad, and River's End on the Yough) and I can bite the bullet and line or portage those three.

Coupla votes for Hahn, but I really want to do it in an open boat. Headwinds on the Missouri will be bad and headwinds on the Columbia might be a spoiler, but I want to try it in an open boat.

As I tracked the mileage on GMAPS, though, I became convinced that I can not do it in one calendar year, though I'll still leave January 1 and try. 350 mile from Georgetown to the Eastern Divide in January is possible. 1,150 miles from the Divide to Cairo, IL, in 5 weeks and Cairo to St. Louis in 3 weeks are remotely possible, so I might start up the Missouri by May 1. But up the Missouri and the Madison is 2,400 miles -- say, 6 months if all went well -- and starting down the Henrys Fork in October would be goofy.

Other useful advice I'll look into:
Hennessey Hammock
Kazimierczek
Nova Craft SuperNova
Sawyer Loon
Kruger SeaWind
Mad River Monarch

Thanks for all the replies. As this project progresses I will undoubtedly be posting many more questions!

-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty

[cbcboat]

One other thing that should be noted and I'm sure you've planned for this, in the west sprintime is when the rivers are at their biggest, so paddling upstream or downstream for that matter you will be dealing with a lot of water. The rivers this side of the Mississippi get their flows from snowmelt and not rain, so plan for big water in the spring and early summer in the Rockies. Looks like a pretty sweet trip, can't wait till you get going so we can all see how things go.
Good Luck
B