These are my preliminary thoughts as I have only had the tc16 for about 2 months. I'm no veteran canoeist, but I have taken my 15' dagger legend on a few class 3 runs. 4.5 stars as I do think there is room for improvement.
The bad:
The self bailing ports are a great idea in theory, however in practice too much water is let in. I have found them to be useful as drain plugs. With tandem paddlers, they let in enough water to change the paddling dynamics drastically. while solo paddling they allow just enough water in/out to call the benefit negligible. When I do swamp it, the draining occurs so slowly through the ports that I typically just dump. My typical use case is running the US National Whitewater Center in Charlotte. Here, the location of the self bailing allows me to open the ports on the conveyor and empty my boat while angled upward and temporarily grounded. They are perfect for mostly emptying the boat when beached.
While very rigid, when smashing abrupt 5’+ waves, the front end folds up a bit. I don’t know if this belongs in the “bad” section because I believe this keeps the boat dryer.
The overlap of the fabric over the hard plastic on the bow and stern is susceptible to rapid wear. Inflatables can take massive amounts of abuse because of their ability to deflect. In the canoe’s case, the areas where pvc fabric is bonded to the plastic is not flexible. My use at the whitewater center (concrete) is a very hard use case. This wear is unlikely to be as significant in natural rivers. I molded 2 hdpe skid plates that I can lash onto the bow and stern to protect the boat and have had good luck with this. It’d be awesome to if Sea Eagle would offer something like this along with a skeg holder protector as I am only able to approximate the shape.
No yoke, new techniques for portaging possible with the handles. It’s a change, but honestly once you have it figured out it might be easier
Price is high but I do not regret my purchase
The vinyl seats induce immediate swamp@ss. Might not be a problem outside of summer. I kneel in whitewater anyway.
The way the seats are mounted present an entrapment hazard. Open appendage sized webbing is scary for whitewater. I leave the seats out for my whitewater days. This may be fixed with the non-inflatable seats.
I think it would be totally possible to get the weight under 50lbs for air travel. It might require separating the floor from the rest of the boat, but it would make traveling with this thing unbelievably easy.
Deflating and packing it up wet is great for travel, but you need to dry it out for long term storage.
Its not a real canoe.
The good:
Sea Eagle customer service was honestly amazing. My package was missing two seats and they made it right immediately.
Other than the pvc to plastic interface, the boat has taken abuse happily. With a patch kit on hand, I would easily put this in a category of its own in terms of durability. I have never seen another tandem canoe at the whitewater center, and wouldn’t consider bringing my royalex legend. This place really is truly punishing on boats.
Trunk packable. I keep it partially inflated and transport it most of the time like a traditional canoe so it can dry out and set up fast. It needs to be properly dried before long term storage. I haven’t flown with it, but besides the overweight baggage fee I don’t see this being a problem.
It weighs just a touch over 60lbs. Solo loading and transport is possible and not terribly taxing, even when inflated.
With the weight of 2 paddlers, coolers, and camp gear performance was not significantly impacted.
Flipping and dumping the boat while in the water is totally possible with tandem paddlers. It’s a little tougher solo, but still achievable.
Most of the time the boat is rigid enough to make you believe you are in a real canoe. I think adding rigid seats, thwarts, and/or a yoke would further increase the overall rigidity. I keep some lightly tensioned webbing between all the seat d-rings and this seems to help.
Easily outfitted. Adding d-rings is easy.
Flatwater paddling with the skeg is fast compared to my other tandem whitewater boat. Not sure how it compares to a flatwater intended canoe.
Its inflatable so kneeling while paddling doesn’t hurt or require foam. You might benefit from a little foam from an rubbing standpoint. I wear pants to avoid rubber rash.
Great primary stability. Even with two big dogs jumping off and getting pulled back on we never came close to tipping. I can easily stand in this boat on flat water.
No knocks to Sea Eagle, but I look forward to a more reputable whitewater inflatable brand or canoe brand to come up with a competing drop stitch canoe! I hope Sea eagle goes all in on this one and provides more options.
Hope this helps!
