Alchemy, Delphin, Reflection
Posted by: Peter-CA
on Nov-25-12 1:46 AM (EST)
Faster boat or rock garden boat - I think you should decide. The Zephry and Scirroco are both good all around boats, and a bit faster than what you have in your fleet. So would many of the Valley boats (pretty much all excluding the new Geminis). But none are really great for rock gardening (lack of turning ability - the trade off for that speed). Of course, if you have rocks and you are paddling one of these speedier tourers, nothing wrong with going in to play. But they just are not optimal as rock gardening boats.
But if rock gardening is a major part of the goal, you may want to choose something a bit shorter. Dagger Alchemy or P&H Delphin are excellent options in plastic, or Sterling Reflection or Valley Gemini SP for composite. The Fusion is also a good rock garden boat, if you don't have to paddle far to the rock gardens. The Alchemy, Delphin, and Fusions are boats of choice of the Neptune's Rangers folks (http://www.neptunesrangers.com/), and Sterling for The Hurricane Riders (http://hurricaneriders.com/).
All boats mentioned here are skeg boats.