This is probably an affront to you highly experienced and now advanced trippers,...but what is there to know about soloing in a tandom ?  I bet most of "Y'all" have some sort of experiennce with this. There must a lot of knowlege ,yes -even wisdom-,that you guys (not to mention ,help...) could lay out for those of us who now have the bug (6 bwca trips), little money(wounded cement finisher),and the stubornheadness to push off in my Penobscot by myself for 10 days or so?  I'm hoping to get some practical guidance or ,if not,tails of "valient " efforts by those of you who have been able to enjoy conoe tripping,and evolve,to a level I only hope to get to.   Advice would be really helpful...  mucho... ...

knafelc wrote on Nov 27^th, 2011 at 3:22am:

My last three trips were using borrowed solos. Before that, I always just used my tandem. Portaging is easier with the lighter solos and I found can paddle into more wind with a solo but beyond that, paddling a tandem works great. On day trips in my tandem I set a 40# bag of water up front for better trim.

A light weight tandem shouldn't be much heavier than an average solo canoe.  You should plan to sit more in the center of the length of the canoe, so some kind of alternate seat??
Maybe a deeper keel or skeg would help with straight tracking on distant paddles.
Anyway, I am dedicated kayak paddler so really don't know much about solo canoes.  MY Poke boat only weighs 28 pounds and I have gotten three weeks of gear and food stowed into it.  Kayaks are hard to stow all your gear in, bulkheads and rudder cables etc. can get in the way.  If you have a kayak without too much under the decks it makes getting the gear into it much easier.

Nothing wrong with soloing a tandem boat.  Some folks who do long trips need the extra space.

I do it beacuse of cash & utility.  Any time I go on a trip I can bring a buddy without any extra logistics.

any symetrical tandem with flat bench seats will work if you want to paddle it from the bow seat  - the 16' royalex penobscot, if that is what you have, is one of the better choices - at 58#, not too heavy to portage  - if you've got a poly version at 75# plus, I can see why you want to go lighter.  Ranger uses his 16' Rx Penobscot when he solos.
A Souris River Quetico 16 (not sure if symetrical, but I think so) is 42# in Kevlar - if your anywhere near Ely, many of the BW outfitters use them, and most will sell used - otherwise, not easy to come by in the rest of the country.

  Hard to get much lighter - my Bell Northstar is 16 1/2' and weighs 39#, but not symetrical so can't really be paddled from bow seat reversed very well (need a kneeling thwart) - you likely want to go to an ultralight vs regular kevlar to get the lighter canoe.

personally, I'd stick with a 15 footer - maybe a Wenonah Prospector in ultralight layup - 38# and $2500 - but I'd never solo a tandem unless I had to so that's speculative.
The Bell Morningstar seems to have a lot of fans as a solo - might find one used.



if you are preferring a used boat, I'd just keep checking Craig'slist for your area and grab the first reasonable candidate you come across

another source is Paddling.net classifides - and thier canoe buyer's guide will give you specs on lots of canoes, and there are also reviews for most of them.

some people do paddle solo in a tandem using the stern seat, piling all thier gear up towards the bow to trim the boat - don't need a symetrical canoe that way