C-Forum

Talking about the boat, not the river. I hear Nova Craft canoe is going to start making Ocoees again. Anyone know about this?

Have a look 3 threads bellow.... look like Nove craft will be molding them...

Yeah, thanks. I didn't see that.

Nova Craft has a picture of the Ocoee on their Facebook page which they "introduced" 2 days ago. I gather from some Tweets they put up that they were working on the mold in early and mid December so as to have some boats available for test paddling this month. So hopefully the boat will be commercially available for this year sometime.

According to Nova Craft this boat is going to weigh only 38 lbs in Royalex with vinyl gunwales and deck plates, and 44 lbs in what they call Royalex Plus (with vinyl trim). Dagger listed the Ocoee with vinyl trim at 52 lbs. So I wonder how well this boat is going to hold up?

Novacraft is calling their best selling Royalex Lite, Royalex and the regular heavier less popular Royalex, Royalex Plus.

Even the regular Royalex (Royalex Plus) has to be a considerably thinner sheet than what Dagger used. More in line with what Bell used which listed a weight for the Ocoee with vinyl gunwales at 41 lbs. But the gunwales that Bell put on the Ocoee were lighter than what Dagger used and (judging from the picture) what NC will be using.

The ones from bell are crap. I bought a used bell, and I'm really not pleased by the quality of the gunwales (brilliant canoe though). The gunwales aren't stiff enough, making the boat fold on waves! I'm seriously considering to replace them with wood.

I don't think the one by NC will be any better. So far I have not been impress by the quality of there RX boats. I guess RX is not as it used to be.
Cheers
David

How exactly does it fold on waves? I bought a Bell Ocoee last summer and haven't experienced any folding. Haven't broke my gunnels yet and I don't find them to be all that flexible. One of the deck plates broke the second time I took it out though. I also owned a Dagger Ocoee for a really short period of time and didn't really notice a difference in the the thickness of royalex. They are pretty close in weight as well. The original owner of the Dagger that I owned fixes and builds canoes for a living. He used to work for Bell canoes. I said something to him about the general consensus that the older Daggers were superior in durability. He thought that was BS. He said that allot of the complaints were due to royalex that was newer and hadn't cured as long as some of the older boats. Don't have enough first hand experience to have too much of an opinion on it, but I thought it was interesting.

No complaints about the royalex - so far -.

Actually folding is exagerated, but on waves, the hull does not keep it's shape. Bow and stern rise and/or drop a lot more from their original position then for example of my Viper11. If you would place a Bell Occoee on the grass and have 2 people press down the stern and bow, you'd be surprised how much it can be pressed down. It moves more then it should in vertical direction at bow and stern. The only reason I can think of is the poor quality of the gunwales. never had that issue with any other boat so far.

I've had two Dagger Ocoees and one Bell and there is no comparison. While I can't speak to thickness because I never measured it, the Bell Royalex was inferior to that of the Dagger boats in every respect. Bell gunnel material was just flimsy. Now we are to believe that Nova Crap is going to "bring back" the Ocoee. In your dreams. First the mold is still with Bell or so the talk goes. Nova Crap on FB shows their folks building a mold. The Dagger boat (and the one built by Bell) was 11'2" long. Nova Crap says theirs is 11'3" and based on a Frankie Hubbard design. Another "me, too" project. And the Royalex (Royalite); Royalex plus (just regular old Royalex) thing is just smoke and mirrors. Friends, don't hold your breath. Go paddle something by innovators like Esquif or Blackfly.

If a canoe is too flexible in rapids, it is easier to stiffen it by adding thwarts in "empty" areas than to replace the vinyl. Ash is an unusually flexible hardwood, and would not be my first choice if my goal was to stiffen the boat.

But thwarts are cheap and easy. You can use narrow ash or mahogany, or you can use sitka spruce like I do, preserving against rot by slips of FG and epoxy over the ends.

The X thwarts seen on some of Kaz's boats can add more stiffeness than straight thwarts.

Stiffness can also be increased by some sort of pillar between the thwarts and the bottom of the hull. My triple saddles are set up this way. While foam pedestals or pillars add weight, they add flotation too.

true royal light r84, is only available in red and green according to Spartech. And the stiffness issue is more than likely a lack of foam. Foam is what really give royalx its stiffness you can put all the twarts in you want and you are not going to increase the stiffness in the hull. You may increase overall boat stiffness but not hull stiffness. I have not seen a NC ocoee but I can say it took us a minute to figure out the best sheet and process to get the Viper 11 up to where I wanted it. There is a lot that has to go right got royalex form properly, if you miss any of the five or six things that have to go right the boat quality suffers. It is hard for companies to redesign the sheets to much it is a hard long process, your layup schedule has to be approved by spartech and it cost five hundred dollars for each redesign of the sheet. So guess what I am saying dont be too hard on them it will take them a minute or two to get it right.

Actually Nova Craft builds pretty good Royalex boats, as far as Rx goes. Much better than Bell did IMO. Nova Craft isn't afraid to add some weight for stiffness in my experience. I'm anxious to see how the Ocoee works out with the Nova Craft banner. I'm pretty sure it will be an improvement over Bell.

THe other thing is it takes months for spaztech to feel an order. For sheets that we have orderd numerous times it is a 3+ month wait, for new sheet design and construction your looking at about 5 months. Nothing happens fast with them.

A friend has inquired on the price of a Nova Craft Ocoee. It will set you back $1500. A Mohawk Viper seems a better deal at around $500 less. Still, it's great to see the Ocoee design being carried on and I think before we throw sticks and stones at Nova Craft, we ought to give them a chance and see how good an Ocoee they can make. I know for myself that if I really wanted a certain canoe, that price wouldn't stop me from buying it if it was well made.