I’m looking at a Mad River Eclipse in the Royalex Layup. From what I understand is that they used a Royalex “light” layup in some . This was not Royalite but Royalex.
Does anyone have any more info on the Eclipse. How does it compare to the Penobscot 16?

Just found out the canoe is a 1997 with aluminum rails, it was stored in a garage. Is this still prone to “cold cracks”?

Never have had a royalex boat but my understanding is that cold cracking was more likely with wood gunwales. Less so with aluminum gunwales. If it's present you should be able to see it at the location of the gunwale screws as vertical cracks in the hull.

I don't know anything about the specific boat in question, but did own a Mad River Explorer in Royalex for about 20 years. It was a 1985 model. Had the wood gunnels and was stored in an unheated barn. Never had any trouble with cracking, but maybe I just got lucky and maybe it would have cracked as it got older.

I liked paddling the boat pretty well, but did not enjoy portaging it all that much. The siren call of lighter Kevlar finally won out and I passed mine on to someone else.

I have a Mad River Eclipse. I bought it five years ago. If I am not portaging this is my go to canoe. I took mine from a tandem to a solo. The slight rocker and V hull makes the a great canoe in extremely bad weather. Mine is a mid 90's model. Not a crack anywhere. This is the canoe I was in on Seagull for 11 days a couple weeks ago. If you don't want the canoe please send me the info so I can purchase and pick-up when I return to Minnesota in September.

Mad river royalex seems to be prone to cold cracks for any gunwale material. Less so for vinyl or alu rails, but even then, it is common to get them near the stems of bow and or stern.