Old Salt,

Good advice as always. My kids paddle but are on the edge of being able to tandem although I treat it like a solo whenever I have one of them in the boat. I sit a little forward of my usual stern seat and if they dip a paddle in, great, if not I can still control the boat. Both are turning into strong paddlers which will pay dividends in the future  ;)

You're right though about us all wanting to be in the same canoe. My wife suggested that I get a solo so that we could go parallel but the issue there is portaging two boats -- that might be hard for her although there are true solos out there for 32# or so. I'd opt for an SR17 probably which is more in the 42 to 44 lb range.

The other issue for us at least is the economics of it --- i.e. how to only lay out for one boat with money from the sale of the other.

I like the SR18.5 too.

My only issue there is whether there is room for 4 with 2 full adult portage packs, a food barrel, and 2 kid packs? Hmmm.

I guess our best option is to test paddle all of them on our trips  ::)