Advice for Mohawk canoes

Berkshire Jack · Post by **Berkshire Jack** » Thu May 14, 2009 1:17 am

Thank you for asking what the C Boat community would like to see come out of the molds.
My biggest desire. A C-1 creeker. Drakkar out of Poland made a great C-1 playboat (the Wheelboy) and then promised a creeker. There was a lot of interest and anticipation on this board, but Drakkar folded before they got the creeker into production. There really is no current competition out there in that niche.
The Spanish Fly (while not being a C1) is a good design - but not totally as a creeker. The slicey ends have a shape which act unpredictably in confused water and the ends lack the volume to reliably surface in the aerated stuff IMHO. The Tareau is better as a creeker, but its ends are so bulbous it just takes too much effort to roll.

In terms of regular open boats - the shorter designs are the way to go - as many here have already stated.

Also, make some effort to get your boats out into the community for demo-ing. As others have suggested, the various festivals, such as put on by the AWA all have vendor events and usually opportunities for people to demo the boats.

Jack

MikeOC1 · Post by **MikeOC1** » Thu May 14, 2009 2:05 am

A quake'ish type boat from a company in the SE I would buy.

D-Caption · Post by **D-Caption** » Thu May 14, 2009 2:57 am

Mohawk, here is your opportunity to shine and rise to the top of the boating industry. You asked us what we want in a nice way and now we are giving you feedback to get the wheels spinning on designing new boats. The paddlers on this site are among the best in the world and you should take advantage of this great opportunity. Wouldn't it be great to introduce the hottest boat on the market and call it the ' The Southeastern Creeker; by Mohawk. You just got a cheap offer for someone to do the design work and I am sure all of these guys wouldnt mind paddeling it and tweaking things until its right for the market. One foot longer than the Spanish Fly, a little wider for stability with fuller ends and slightly smaller cockpit for a dryer ride. Every paddler on this site would buy one and look what it could do for this great sport.Other companies would follow suit. boat sales would go up and help boost the economy. And it could start now just because you guys took the time to ask what we want Lets make it happen. Its time for a change. thanks for listening D-Caption

bellotti · Post by **bellotti** » Thu May 14, 2009 4:15 am

You make a short, STABLE, decent handling creeker out of PE and I think you'd have pretty much the whole C-community gushing over you!

Sam · Post by **Sam** » Thu May 14, 2009 5:17 am

I'd like to thank everyone that has posted their thoughts so far. I can assure you we are taking note of everything each of you is saying.

I'll admit our company has been in a limbo for the last few years; we've had numerous issues to sort out as we have brought the company into its new stewardship. We feel we are doing a good job so far but we are also fully aware that we have a good bit to go before Mohawk can be a name associated with progress rather than living off of old glories.

We have a number of 'black' projects in the works, projects which I'll happily admit are birthing from good old-fashioned pow-wows that occur after collating experiences on the river with the fluid inspiration to be found from a night drinking beers and cooking BBQ. Of course we do our best to recall the most memorable suggestions from a good safety meeting as well...

We think we have some ideas - currently biased towards materials - which, if they prove viable, could cause a real ripple of excitement amongst the community. We recognise we have issues that we need to overcome but I'll personally say the large number of responses that this thread has already encouraged is heartening.

Right now, I think one of our most vibrant strengths is our customer service; while I won't take it personally to be disabused of the notion, I think Mohawk benefits a lot from our personal touch. Naturally, we are not perfect. Yet I hope people realise that folk with something to bitch about have more of a reason to make their voice heard than those who have had a smooth transition from ordering their boat to cresting a wave or nailing a drop that makes them satisfied that they chose to spend their hard-earned cash on a Mohawk boat.

I am not trying to diminish the disappointments of those that have had a less than perfect experience with our company. I am, however, asking people to consider this is not the common experience. I personally am still learning - a lot - about this business which I find myself in. I can also vouch for the straight fact my colleagues also want to see happy people in kick-butt Mohawk boats.

Again, we have some occasional issues with materials but there's not a single customer out there who has been left dangling in the end of their dealings with Mohawk.

So please, keep the suggestions coming. If you hear grumblings or ideas from your buddies, pass them along; either here, in a PM our on our own forum :

http://mohawkcanoes.com/phpbb/index.php

As I say, we've got a bunch of cool shi..tuff we are working on. One of which might take the better idea from Pepsi Crystal without the crappy taste left in your mouth.

Thanks for your patience reading my walls of text. They are the only walls between us and you. Drill through them with more ideas.

New outfitting will be up on the website in the month of May. This will be just the start.

Thanks

SMC

Longboatin · Post by **Longboatin** » Thu May 14, 2009 5:50 am

if short is the wave of the future, howz bout a 4'-5' viper - betcha it would spin like a champ and imagine the rain gutter 1st d's .

jakke · Post by **jakke** » Thu May 14, 2009 6:05 am

Why the question for new designs? Ok, Esquif has a lot of new designs, but what do people paddle. A lot of people step back to the classic designs especially for creecking: CU-fly, spanish-fly, prelude, ... .

Many people say that the Viper is outdated. I paddle a Viper11, and I really don't think that design is outdated.

Some ideas I have:
- make a viper 10 (less then or max 3meter length), and make it in PE! That should be a nice creecking boat. Maybe give it a bit more rocker and try to get it a little dryer.
- have a look for small, extreme tandem boats, something in the range of a blast.

Oh, and get yourself a new dealer on the European mainland

.

yarnellboat · Post by **yarnellboat** » Thu May 14, 2009 7:26 am

I can't be the only heavy guy who wants an advanced open boat that isn't so short/wet??

On the bright side of the Royalex issues, it is encouraging more canoeists to try C-1ing! I know people who are converting kayaks and trying C-1 while they ride-out the last legs of their current delaminated Royalex hulls (various manufacturers, including Mohawk). It's a lot cheaper to buy a used kayak than to invest real money in a Royalex hull that will start coming a part in a few seasons. To me materials are biggest problem, designs come next.

Maybe I will try a composite Viper 12 from Western.

Thanks for asking Mohawk, good luck and keep us posted!

PY.

jscottl67 · Post by **jscottl67** » Thu May 14, 2009 1:25 pm

yarnellboat wrote:I can't be the only heavy guy who wants an advanced open boat that isn't so short/wet??

PY.

A shorter boat is not always a wetter boat

A lot depends on the design elements (full ends, flare, hull depth). At 6'3" and 215, I'm no small fry but I want something in the 10' 10.5" range (currently paddling a modified Ocoee)

Yukon · Post by **Yukon** » Thu May 14, 2009 1:45 pm

would be nice to see more canoes from Mohawk in my fleet at www.yukancanoe.com a canoe school located in Northern Canada. Boat companies that really support education through demo boats or boats avaialable at a big discount to the institiute would be great. At the end of the day is great marketing and the manufacture of the boats win. some manufactures have a hard time to see the link between someone learning to paddle in their canoe and future sales.
As an education place I do not have the volume to turn over canoes, replace slightly damaged canoes each year. if Ican make the canoe float it is in the fleet. If a student buys xboat cuz they learned to paddle in it- retailer and manufacture win. Same goes with gear and most of the gear companies have offered great deals. canoe manufactures have been slow

Craig Smerda · Post by **Craig Smerda** » Thu May 14, 2009 2:49 pm

Yukon wrote:canoe manufactures have been slow

In defense of the canoe manufacturers and the paddlesports industry in general... canoeists are even slower to change. It took open boaters ages to accept the Ocoee and Viper designs... it took another generation to see the light in regards to the utility, durability and fun of the rotomolded canoes that have been around since the Skeeter and Quake. I've been to plenty of put-in's where OC'ers are wearing farmer john wetsuits, overstuffed and faded out front zip pfd's and launching boats from the late 80's early 90's... and this is fairly recent. You know some of these types of paddlers and so do I. The industry realizes this... and it act's accordingly. This stereotype doesn't necessarily reflect the majority of paddlers here on C-boats... but it does shine a light on the other part of their "core consumer group". For me it's interesting to compare the parallels between kayakers and canoeists as a consumer/user group. I would say the canoe manufacturers have kept up with the pace... if not set the pace of our aspect of the sport quite well when you look at the big picture. So allow me to ask this... if there was some hot new boat that came out tomorrow... how many of you would be clamoring to buy it immediately?

Best of luck to Mohawk and everyone else left in the game when the dust of this current economy settles.

Louie · Post by **Louie** » Thu May 14, 2009 3:33 pm

Well maybe up north the Ocoee was slow to catch on but down here, with the designer demo'ing it it was the hotest new thing very fast.

Longboat, "4' viper for down spout runs" jesouly doesn't look good on you, but don't dis us for you need to have a barge size boat, can't you just be happy bein the old guy in prehistoric boat, like the Shriner in the model T in the parade?

Georgia Stu · Post by **Georgia Stu** » Thu May 14, 2009 3:56 pm

I guess I must qualify as a die-hard Mohawk fan, since the only OC-1s I've paddled since I started in the late 80s have been Mohawks. First a few years in an old NOC XL-13 student boat, then two Viper 12s that I've paddled since 1992 (~8-9 years per Viper) - presumably the 'old' Royalex. Obviously love the Viper design!

I tend to paddle the Vipers on creeky III-IV(+) stuff (such as photo at left), and have never turned down a run b/c I didn't think the boat could make the moves. The ledgy stuff has been very tough on my sterns, as eventualy all three boats developed some pretty good cracks there. Yes, this is an occupational hazard for longer boats on ledges, but for this reason I personally would love to see a shorter Mohawk plastic boat. Jakke's idea above of a ~10' plastic Viper-like boat could be very much what I'm currently in the market for. One of the things I liked most about my limited paddling C-1 was not worrying about cracking the boat! I'm extremely hesitant to buy a new Royalex boat given my (ab)use on ledges and reading about and watching videos of all the Royalex flimsiness.

And for the record, the last time I dealt with Mohawk (although it's been several years) it was a very pleasant experience. Effortless, fast shipping, no problems at all. Having said that, it would also be very nice to be able to see and demo the boats in stores.

Craig Smerda · Post by **Craig Smerda** » Thu May 14, 2009 4:02 pm

Louie wrote:Well maybe up north the Ocoee was slow to catch on but down here, with the designer demo'ing it it was the hotest new thing very fast.

Not for me... I just had to have one after paddling a Rival for the first few months of my learning curve. The Ocoee was like driving a Ferrari compared to a school bus for me.

The Viper/Ocoee was and in certain circles still is regarded as an "advanced" skills boat. I disagree with that sentiment and feel teaching students and learning in a floppy sloppy round hulled boat tends to slow the learning curve and a lot of folks in them spend more time bracing and ruddering the boat to keep it upright than they do going forward and zipping around on the river... but hey... maybe that's just my take on things.

And don't tell me there aren't plenty of folks down south still paddling Encores (Anchors), Probes and the ocassional person who paddles a Caption solo Mike. Remember... I've been around those put-in's as well.

Louie · Post by **Louie** » Thu May 14, 2009 5:01 pm

Got any pictures?