C-Forum

what volume of a playboat shold i be looking for? I weight about 200 lbs, and with gear its like 5 more, because i wear barely anything(except in the winter. I was looking at the Airhead from LL, and it has 64 gallons, which seems like alot compared to all other playboats, i also looked at the fluid solo L with 58, and the Robson Twintip at 50 (for some reason i thought it was bigger than that). are there other large oplayboats aside from the bigboy? the reason i looked at these is that its a fairly even displacement of the volume from the bow to stern.
thanks
-isaac

It's difficult, at best, to tell much about a boat by volume specs. To start with, it appears that manufacturers fabricate the volume specs. That is to say, they are inaccurate and are rarely, if ever, actually measured.

Next, WHERE the volume is will be the most important thing. It's difficult for a number to tell you where it is. 2 boats can be the same length, width and have the same volume but can handle very, very differently. For instance, volume distributed evenly through out the boat verses slicey ends with volume gathered close to the cockpit or such as in the case of many boats that have WAY more volume in the bow then the stern(I hate that).

I know this is not really any help. Sorry.

Try as many boats as you can. Ask other c-boaters your size about what boats they paddle but try to to get caught up in "volume specs". They are far too misleading.

Large Fluid Flirt or a Wheelboy/Big Boy IMO.
The Flirt is a real nice C1.
Your probably a touch on the high side for the Twintip.
Kind of depends what you want to do with it too.

i guess what im looking for is a symmetrical (relatively) playboat that i can really play around on waves with, and do rodeo play with. like something that i could just park and play with. a really fast hull, equal volume allocation, with a pretty good edge. I was looking at the flirt as well, if the bigboy was less expensive, id like to give it a try, but i just cant afford that.

does anyone on the western side of the us have a flirt converted as a c1?

i was also looking at the airhead from LL, seems like a pretty good displacement of volume pretty even.
i dont know.
thanks
-isaac

Large Flirt specs are 6'-6" in length and 26-3/4" max width (which most boats lack--width!) What I like is the volume distribution behind you... Joe Stumpfel (C-boater) had input on this boat and it shows. The width alone makes it appealing IMO.

yeah, it sure is an appealing design, and id really like to try one. hopefully
-isaac

Isaac......are there any Fluid dealers in Missoula? I'm guessing not. Maybe the Canoe Rack could get one in for you. Off the subject, I lived in Missoula for a while after college. I've guided on the Lochsa for a number of years. Maybe you were one of the few open boaters I've seen on the Lochsa?

I recently moved from Northern ID to Bend, but there aren't any dealers around here or in Portland that I could find. I got to see several Flirts back East when I was there for Gauley season. The Flirts (as C1s) looked great for river running and play. Of course, I was watching C1ers quite a bit better than I on the Upper Yough and Gauley. So they made it all look easy.

According to the Fluid website there is a dealer in Boise, but that's a ways from Missoula. The large Flirt will definitely be my next boat.

i have never done the lochsa, i have thought about it, but i only really began to do rivers solo the fall before last, and this was my first spring taking harder and harder rivers. then i got a C-1, and havent done much open paddling since july.
the boaters you likely saw were Brandon, Ben, shaun, or john. theyre missoula guys who are way better than i am , and they run it occasionally.
yeah i noticed the dealer in Boise as well, unfortunately the dealer has a not-working website. so it goes.
cheers
-isaac

I had a dagger kingpin 6.3 that had 56 gallons and it wasn't enough for me at 215 lbs. (probably 220 w/ gear)
I've got a large flirt now and it's pretty much perfect (and I'm closer to 210-215 w/ gear now), it definitely has a lot more than the advertised 58 gallons because I put it next to my buddy's superEZ and it looked to be at least as big (ws says the superEZ is 62 gallons)
anyway, I'm in MD so I can't really help you with a demo, but I can tell you I really like my large flirt, really really good primary stability (w/ 6" saddle) and all kinds of space inside so it's easy to make comfortable, and the rear anchor bolts for the kayak seat are in a good place for attaching a lap belt if you want to use one
it's considerably faster than my kingpin was
tips aren't quite as slicey as they were in the kingpin so it's not as easy to initiate, but it's far from impossible

Yup--- advertised Volume means nothing really. Look at volume distribution first, look at the length, height, and where the bulk of the width is for c-boats. A boat that carries it width from nearly front to back will be more user friendly than a boat that is wide in the middle and gets radically narrower as you go forward or back. The narrower the boat the easier it is to throw around... if you are 99lbs, 5-1 and limber as a spider monkey. Width also affords you a saddle more than 4" tall.

The Kingpin and the Flirt are completely different boats if you really look at them... and one was designed as a kayak... the other "hint-hint" had a c-1'er behind the scenes. Which one sight unseen would you want knowing "that".

Craig

Joe---are you out there?