Submitted: 09-15-2003 by jlatecki
My Kevlar encounter has the sliding seat and sliding foot brace. Sliding the seat forward or back can make trimming much easier. I took an 1,800 mile canoe trip from Ohio to New Orleans paddling an encounter. Much of the trip was paddled on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers with a decent load. The biggest downfall of the encounter is the way it handles in the wind, or should I say fails to handle. The stability is better than what I expected. The tumblehome was a good idea for the encounter. It can handle large waves well. Tow boat and ocean ship wake did not trouble the encounter.With no tracking to mention sharp steering is hard to do, but on big waters there are few sharp turns. I paddle the encounter empty on small rivers, but the encounter was not designed for this use. I would not recommend buying an encounter for small water.(to much work)
After about 70 days of paddling the seat welds welded to the sliding bar began to break. Before my trip was over all the welds broke. The seat has a ridge on the back and I had a habit of sitting up high on the ridge which put stress on the front two welds. |