I recall Pat Moore joining a previous
Posted by: g2d
on Jan-05-13 4:46 PM (EST)
thread and warning me not to characterize his canoes as fishform. His reasons were good, but then certain of his canoes *are* fishform at a glance, even if that isn't the truth about what they do below the waterline.
Millbrook Kaz's recent slalom canoes certainly are fishform, and with a relatively straight, lower rocker stern, they are not easy to turn by skidding the stern. The paddler is kneeling "cab forward" and manages the direction of the boat by essentially pulling it around at the bow. This is easy to do because much of the bow is out of the water.
My Millbrook, similar to the Defiant (Fat Boy), is not as radical as the Ignitor/Spark, and the stern will skid a bit on an outside lean. I tried moving the pedestal forward to unload the stern, but that didn't work. Moving it back felt much better.
My Mad River Synergy is swedeform and behaves like it. So one day I turned things around and paddled it in reverse. I could definitely feel the difference. As a fishform, its stern wanted to trail straight behind, and while the bow felt less "definite", it was quite easy to pull the bow this way and that with adjusted forward strokes. In its original swedeform orientation, the Synergy's bow must be released by the paddler leaning back, if a slalom move requires adjustment at the front end.
Canoes with sharp ends in the water still turn somewhat like whitewater canoes, but skidding, spinning, and carving don't happen as easily.