Lady Di wrote:
I have paddled the Pal Royalex lite version for several hours..so it's the same canoe but 9 lbs lighter.
I was checking product reviews on the net and could not find much and was hoping people here had some experience.
Yes, agreed no ramming or abuse - really just want to know it will take "normal wear and tear" attributed to flat water canoeing.
Don't let anyone convince you that a Royalex canoe and a composite canoe are identical. Particularly if they are using the same mold for both boats, in which case it is impossible. Canoes come out of the mold very differently depending on what went in and how it went in. This was pointed out to me in clear terms by a pioneer in the industry with whom I spoke at the Paddlefest last week (wish you coulda been there, lots of smart and experienced folks to help you out).
The differences may only be subtle, more or less rocker, slight change in bottom shape,
always blunter entry lines on the plastic boat. These differences may or may not be noticed by you, or they may be big enough to make you unhappy with the boat.
Usually, only good things happen to the composite canoe. The finer entry lines in the composite boat make paddling easier and the boat slightly faster with the same effort. Composite boats usually have stiffer bottoms, and therefore oilcan (flex) much less or not at all. That means they can have slightly flatter bottoms and feel less tender (tippy) than their plastic ugly siblings.
In some cases, a manufacturer makes an entirely different boat. Bell's Wildfire in Royalex was so different from the original that they eventually renamed the boat "Yellowstone Solo", and their current Northwind in Royalex is 2" narrower at the gunwale and a full 12" shorter

than their composite offering with the same name. In this last case, the Royalex boat feels much stabler than the cloth boat (and is a decidedly less elegant paddler).
As far as the product reviews for the infusion boats, good luck. Infusion technology was first brought over from the aerospace industry a few years ago, so you won't get any accurate reports about its longevity. Placid Boatworks was, I believe, the first to use the method, but their boats are Kevlar/graphite composites (like the Blue Steel Novacrafts but without the added Spectra fiber). They are designed to be tough as nails, to be used in whitewater, not just flatwater. I'd expect the Novacraft boat to be just as tough since they offer that layup in their whitewater and expedition boats as well.
The biggest enemy to longevity in a Kevlar canoe is the sun. U.V. light degrades Kevlar and severely weakens it. Novacraft seems to have partly solved the problem by using a spiffy looking two-toned colored gel coat (that white bottom will hide scratches real nice). You can help out by keeping it out of the sun when in storage, or if you're like me and insist on storing it on the roof rack for instant accessibility, make or buy a canoe cover. And use a U.V. inhibitor like this:
http://www.properautocare.com/303-16.html
So make the plunge. Get that canoe and take it out and paddle it hard. Put some scratches on the bottom. Bump a few rocks. It'll take it.
Name it "Speculation".
