| Here: You can do a quick comparison to see if you think Brand X’s new hull is actually “apples for apples” or the more ordinary “apples for oranges”. |
| Souris River Quetico 17 features: |
Brand X’s new “apples for apples with Souris River” canoe hull features |
| Epoxy Resin - Heat cured, strong, flexible forever, and doesn’t like to let go of kevlar fibers under stress. Easy to make a lasting repair because cured epoxy resin does not change significantly with age. |
Vinylester Resin - room cured, gets brittle with age, only encapsulates kevlar fibers-doesn’t bond nearly the same as epoxy and wait’ll you get to make a repair! Repairing Brand X |
| Full Sheet Construction - all 4 layers of kevlar and other layers are complete sheets - no splices to fall apart under stress - and if you actually use your canoe, there will be stress. |
Partial sheet construction - 2 layers in sides, three in the bottom, splices of kevlar hidden in the sides of the canoe - sounds really “apples for apples” doesn’t it? |
| Unique Flexible Rib System for floor stiffening - only effective and achievable with epoxy resin -designed (and immensely-proven) to hold up in the brutal, rock laden Boundary Waters - (Go ahead and ask Brand X canoe outfitters how those foam core kevlar canoes are working out for them in rentals!) |
Foam Core Floor Stiffener - holds the bottom rigid. Doesn’t budge one bit, crushes on the rocks, leaves grooves and cracks in the kevlar, not easy to fix, and breaks along the chines, rivets pull out of the styrofoam, a “joy” to fix! But hey - that’s the way it’s always been done. No oven time makes these canoes fast to build and sensibly profitable for the builder. |
| Integrated skid plates already installed on every Souris River Canoe. No extra dinking around. |
No Skid Plates but for another $75 - $125 you can hire someone to install big fat ones on your canoe and add another 4 lbs. of weight plus don’t forget the snappy, sleak appearance afterwards! Don’t want skid plates? There’s always multiple layers of silver duct tape - believe me, I’ve seen it many, many times. |
| Brass Grommeted Tie Down Holes in bow and stern for convenience and function. |
Do-Diddly here - tie to the grab handles or wherever. |
| Extruded Aluminum Gunwales - one smooth piece, no scoring and folding |
Folded, formed, scored gunwales can crack with use along score lines. |
| Heavier Duty Aluminum Parts - Who are they kidding anyway? America is not getting thinner. |
Light gauge aluminum everything because saving a pound for racing is everything! I never see too many big dudes in races, but the Brand X marketing team must really know and understand their canoe market - hence the attempt to copy the hull of the Souris River Quetico 17. And the canoe building experts are…who? |
| Le Tigre Kevlar - Looks great, unique, refinishes well and fades evenly |
Boring Skin Coat Butterscotch kevlar because it’s cheaper. |
| Woven Color - doesn’t add weight and you can’t scratch it off on the rocks, refinishes pretty nicely as well. Plus, it’s transparent enough that you can see how the canoe was built. Gel coating hides splices, little pieces added here and there, etc. |
Gel Coat - a good old fashioned technique that adds 6-8 lbs. of weight, scratches off on the rocks, cracks off on the rocks, needs repair, needs delicate handing, does not accept impacts without cracking like a pane of glass. It does look really pretty in the showroom and hides a ton of questionable workmanship underneath, plus it impresses that particular customer who doesn’t research anything. |
| Skid-ability - All SR’s slide over rocks with the final layer of fiberglass serving as a protective layer that WILL slide over rocks.. Souris River knows that fiberglass will slide over rocks and resists getting stuck. Straight kevlar gets caught and torn up. |
Stick-ability - all skin coat Brand X canoes can (and many do) get torn up as they slide over rocks with a load. Those kevlar fiber bundles that make up the cloth grind tot a screeching halt on rocks causing meaningful damage. Don’t believe me? Go hang around at Boundary Waters public landings and look at the outfitter canoes - look for sloppy patches, cuts and cracks. Or visit this page here to see what a foam core looks like after it slides over a rock. |
| Wet Foot Canoeing - unneccesary in a Souris River. Just use a little common sense that would be applied to all canoes and canoeing. Don’t ram shore at 30 MPH in attempt to make the portage 18 ” shorter. Don’t step in the canoe until it’s entirely floating on water and not resting on a rock. Don’t lever the canoe over beaver dams when fully loaded, et al. These same conmon sense rules which have applied to aluminum and royalex canoes since the dawn of time. In looking at our rental canoes, I’m pretty sure these rules are not always followed, but you can at least make an effort. |
Wet Foot Canoeing - definitely a must in Brand X if you want to own the canoe past your first trip in the Boundary Waters. But that’s OK, some people like soft toenails. Crossing portages with soft toenails and Teva sandals means greater flexibliity in all those gnarly rocks. Less pain and damage to the toes. Ironically, this is much like Souris River’s ability to flex over rocks and survive rugged conditions thereby reducing the need for sandals and soft toenails afterall. It’s a true paradox. |
| Handling on water - absolutely outstanding canoe on the water! Stable, user friendly, tracks, turns and handles big water while fully loaded or empty, like a champ. |
Handling on water - finally, Brand X should now actually have an outstanding canoe on the water. Up until now, everything else they’ve made has been kinda crappy, unforgiving, and less fun for regular folks who aren’t racing or interested in racing. I’m glad they finally stole all the design help they’ve needed for all these years. Says a lot about Souris River’s design work, eh? |
| So what did you come up with? I’m thinking that Brand X has a canoe that is “apples for apples the same” as Souris River’s famous Quetico 17 except for all those differences. I’m also a “vegetarian” but I do like beef, and chicken, and pork …Yeah, definitely the same canoe. - JB - |
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