Marsh Jones wrote:

Big deal. As a general rule, it's the rider, not the ride. Wenonah
Minnesota II is the standard for BWCA travel - at least in Kevlar boats.
They are not a short, beamy barge - they are long, very fast, and have
a lower initial stability in trade for a very good secondary stability.
You can flip them if you use them improperly, although the same can be
said for any boat. Without knowing your friends real ability, the
specific conditions that they were in, and what they normally paddled,
it's hard for me to assess their appropriateness for the boats.
Personally, I'll stick to my MinnII for BWCA travel.

Marsh Jones
New Brighton, MN


John wrote:
Friends of mine had been going to BWCA for years. A few years ago they
rented Wenonah canoes for the first time ever. Three of four canoes
capsized during the trip. They had never capsized a canoe before that.
They refer to the canoes as WE KNOW NOW's (not to rent wenonah's).
Maybe it was the weather or their confidence that caused the
problem...but they swear it was the canoes


Maybe it was their lack of a low brace ;-)

I agree with Marsh. Every hull design is a tradeoff between speed and
stability. I had a Wenonah Jensen 18 that I used to use for casual racing.
While it is not necessarily recommended as a tripping boat, we took it up to
Algonquin one year for an 11 day trip up into the northern end of the park. We
had that sucker loaded. While it was slightly less stable than the other boats
that were on the trip, it was an absolute joy to paddle. It was fast and
responsive. I would take a slight loss of initial stability to get hull speed
any day.

Mike