Anyone have experience with this boat? I might have a line on one for a reasonable price. Would these be tough enough for occasional class ii? Already outlined this in another thread but I've been looking for a canoe I can use on rivers and potentially solo with a smaller child on lakes in the BWCA. Seems like this fits the bill.

It's kevlar, but from what I can tell mad River does their kevlar layups with s-glass and gel coat and it's relatively durable? Seller says he bought it in 2000 and the mad River archive doesn't give specific info that far back.

Yes, it's a solid boat, certainly capable of class II. Mad River made robust Kevlar boats for pretty hard use. At one time the Kevlar Explorer was the standard expedition canoe.

Thomas

I have 2 Explorers in the kelvar expedition layup. They are the canoes I use most. I run class 2, use it solo with my dog, a 92# poodle and use it tandem in the BWCA when fishing with a friend.
They are about 56# with the wood gunwales so not to bad to portage.
The S glass on the bottom scratches white and doesn’t fuzz up like kelvar does.
It’s a canoe that does a good job at a lot of things.

Carl

Owner says he thinks it weighs about 45lbs which may mean it's the KL version. Wondering if that will be tough enough for my needs...

Anyone with one of these know if the kv or kx models by(heavier) have foam ribs/foam core?

Thomas
A Mad River expedition explorer won’t have ribs it will have extra layers of Kevlar and will have gel coat. I have only seem one ultralight Explorer and it had a foam core bottom and ribs. It also had skin coat instead of gel coat.
Even a ultralight Explorer would be able to do moderate class 2. A 16’ canoe at 45 # would a reasonably tough canoe. There wouldn’t be much different in a expedition canoe or a ultralight canoe wrapped around a rock.
I would love to have a ultralight Explorer.

Carl

That’s a great boat.

I've paddled a KX Explorer. It's light and excellent for lake tripping and portaging, but the one you are considering is 20+ years old and the gelcoat may be brittle so I wouldn't paddle it in class 2 whitewater. You may better off with an old Royalex Explorer for durability and hitting rocks in whitewater. Just my 2 cents.