> Anyone have experience with the CLC West River series, especially the new
> 2nd generation version? How do they paddle? What type of stability? How
> fast are they? How do they track? How hard are they to build? And why do
> you see so many pictures of CLC boats with painted hulls and Pygmy's
> aren't?

I'll let others respond to most of your questions, but I wanted to say something about paint vs. varnish. If you paddle in an area with a lot of boat traffic you really should paint your hull a bright color. I've almost been run down a few times by (probably drunk) sports fishing boat operators. Imagine a 36-foot Hatterras coming at you out of the fog at 30 knots, it's driver sucking on a Bud. In addition I've heard how hard it is for a rescue boat to spot an upside-down all-varnished hull. We often tell this story to our customers. It is totally irresponsible for any company to tell it's customers that all boats should be varnished. It's hard for CLC to say this since we use Shelman wood which has the best face veneers of any made. Varnishing all our boats would result in more sales if they were compared to others, but it wouldn't be the right thing to do. And yes, even strip built boats should at least have a bright stripe if they are paddled on busy waterways. Nick, do you agree?

Safe paddling, Chris Chesapeake Light Craft