Isere

I canoed and now kayak with some elderly people. They all have 17 kevlar racing canoes 30 lbs or less. and with my 90 lb. fiberglass canoe, on a 3 mile oval, i started 1/4 mile ahead turned around 1/4 before they did. and they would beat me by 1/4 mile. But with this 14' fiberglass Isere, I start when and where the slower ones do and I finish before the slower ones do... but the faster canoers still beat me.

The main problem I had was it was very unstable. I put a v on the bottom down each side. with drywall corner bead. I can it keep upright so far. I am sure i lost some speed and tracking. but it is my favorite kayak now. It is 2x easier to paddle then my 10' polyethylene kayak and it goes alot faster. It is about 12-15 min faster on the 3 mile course.

I bought an Isere from Phoenix back in the 70's and loved it. At the time I bought my boat, they sold un-assembled kayaks so my boat came as a hull, deck and seat assembly. I did the final assembly in a weekend. The resulting boat was fast, stable and had lots of room for packing supplies for touring. I paddled the Isere for about 10 years before I sold it... I sure wish I had it back. Fiberglass kayaks have a feel that make plastic boats paddle like recycled milk bottles... Too bad the price of fiberglass boats is so high; I won't be paddling one any time soon.

I recently purchased an ancient (70s?)Phoenix Isere and I am impressed with its utility. The light weight was the attraction for me (as well as the low used price). My claim (yet to be disproved) is that Kayak use is inversely proportional to weight. I have a nice river 150 yards behind my home and the Isere makes kayaking an attractive workout option. By comparison, my Prijon Kodiak is a strain just to get to the river. The tracking is good but I would say that the Isere would be improved by a rudder in that it assures complete equality in left/right strokes and allows the paddler to use wider, lower strokes. The Isere is fairly wide (as it should be at 14ft) and large volume so weather cocking and wide strokes are to be expected. By comparison, the Kodiak is useless with the rudder up, better with rudder down. The stability is not as high as I would like but I am sure this is due to the seat height more than an inch over the bottom. I plan to angle cut the seat mount and move it to the bottom and rearward.

My needs could be unique as I am 6’ 2” and quite top-heavy. The Isere is fast for its length but beyond this it is more pleasurable than other fast kayaks because it gets up to speed so fast due to the light weight. The 14ft waterline is about optimal with low surface area drag bringing you well past hull speed. The bottom stays smooth because the thin hull gives rather than focusing weight and scratching. Nylon and fiberglass doesn’t sound high performance but the result is more capable than many Kevlar hulls I have seen.

I've owned the Isere for 20years. This is a do it all kayak. I've paddled it on rivers, lakes and oceans. It is deceptively fast and handles very well. No rudder is needed. The only complaints I have is that Phoenix really produces a spartan boat. You have to put your own backstrap, decking and any other necessities you want. Recently a person I know ordered one and the workmanship was very poor. She sent pictures of the blems and Phoenix, to their credit, knocked off a few hundred dollars. With the prices they are now charging, they should outfit this boat to the max. It's a proven design, but not many people know about it because all they promote is their Poke Boats.

I've had this 1982 29lb fiberglass Phoenix Isere for two days now, have paddled it both days on a nearby lake and am quite pleased with it. It seems very fast compared to my Perception Keowee 1 & 2 as well as my Old Town Loon 160T kayaks and my Moore Canoe Company 16'fiberglass Ladybug canoe. It tracks well and turns quickly using body balance and seems to accellerate and glide with very little effort. After two hours paddling on a lake on a very windy day, my arms felt like I could paddle for another hour or two, but I was out of time. I would be pretty worn out with any of my other boats after just an hour. I easily kept up with two men in a tandem canoe. This boat is now my favorite. It initially feels "tippier" than my other boats, but I never felt as if I would go over. The seat has no back rest, but is made pretty comfortable using a piece of high-density foam about 3" thick that sticks up about 3 or 4" above the back of the cockpit. The foot braces are not adjustable while you are seated in the boat. The thigh braces work well for me. I am 5'6" and 145lbs. The 29lb weight makes portaging and loading on the car top almost a pleasure. I reccommend this boat for people who want more speed than recreational kayaks offer and don't need the feeling of security that the high initial stability of recreationl kayaks. I'll update the review after I have tried it on a local river.