Was in the process of doing some winter storage of my pontoon at a boat dealer, and noticed a Wenonah Wilderness in Kev. ultralight they believe its a 2009 and never used hanging off the rafters. My paddling season has ended so I'm asking the experts here who have paddled the wilderness to weigh in on what they may have experienced tripping with this canoe ? I trip with a Bell Wildfire for some personnel comparison on what I like paddling with. Season and time restraints will keep me from doing some test paddling so probably will make decision by the response I get.

The Wilderness is certainly different from a WildFire. BTW if your WildFire is Royalex, it is not a WildFire but rather a Yellowstone Solo.

Bit of a discussion here..actually a book.

Wilderness vs a river boat or plethora of boats

Including a discussion on why you might not have a WildFire. Or might.

Call me to discuss.

I am still trying to figure out what this means:

"Wilderness is too wide for a guy who can sit on a cigarette paper and swing his legs."

The person who made this statement said he was 5'9" and 170 pounds.

Is he saying that for someone his size the Wilderness is too wide?

Yep. That is if you want an efficient single bladed stroke.

Charlie Wilson has been around csnoe building longer than the rest of us mere mortals can hope for. But I get you, his writing is cryptic. But he is not in the crypt. E mail him.

quote yellowcanoe: "BTW if your WildFire is Royalex, it is not a WildFire but rather a Yellowstone Solo."

the royalex canoe i have in my garage right now is badged as a wildfire. are you saying ted bell lied?

Nope. No one lied. If you want the skinny on the differences between the WildFire composite and the Royalex boats badged WildFire, hit the email button.
Then I would be happy to refer you ( with email contacts) to the designer and a principal at Bell at the time of your boats manufacture.

quote kanoes: "

quote yellowcanoe: "BTW if your WildFire is Royalex, it is not a WildFire but rather a Yellowstone Solo."

the royalex canoe i have in my garage right now is badged as a wildfire. are you saying ted bell lied?"

I believe the bottom line is that there was always a significant difference between the composite and royalex Wildfires due to what could be achieved with each medium (they can do almost anything they want with composite, not so with Royalex). In the end they changed the name of the Royalex Wildfire to Yellowstone solo. From what I can gather the old Royalex Wildfires and the new Yellowstone solos are the same boat.

Alan

But then I watch this guy paddle a Wilderness with only a dog for "load" and see nothing but efficiency.

Wilderness

quote yellowcanoe: "Yep. That is if you want an efficient single bladed stroke.


Charlie Wilson has been around csnoe building longer than the rest of us mere mortals can hope for. But I get you, his writing is cryptic. But he is not in the crypt. E mail him."

quote Alan Gage: "

quote kanoes: "

quote yellowcanoe: "BTW if your WildFire is Royalex, it is not a WildFire but rather a Yellowstone Solo."

the royalex canoe i have in my garage right now is badged as a wildfire. are you saying ted bell lied?"

I believe the bottom line is that there was always a significant difference between the composite and royalex Wildfires due to what could be achieved with each medium (they can do almost anything they want with composite, not so with Royalex). In the end they changed the name of the Royalex Wildfire to Yellowstone solo. From what I can gather the old Royalex Wildfires and the new Yellowstone solos are the same boat.


Alan"

They are. And while no deception was intended.. I think that DY and CEW know the timeline. They were at Bell. I wasn't. To bring out a model in Royalex requires a different mold than a composite (and those were two piece..the WildFire composite mold now resides at Colden Canoe) While they were at it CEW and DY tweaked the ABS boat design to favor people who wanted easier tracking. So the stern has a heavier v and less rocker.

Charlie was getting set to go off to Placid with the composite mold. Presumably there were a pile of WildFire stickers that would not be used at Placid.

So for the first two years at least..the Royalex boats had WildFire stickers. And in a way the RX and the composite versions were fairly similar to the normal tripper.