Nova Craft Prospector 16 - Blue Steel

A Lightweight Aramid Tripping Open Canoe

The Nova Craft Prospector 16 - Blue Steel is a super lightweight, strongly constructed laminate open canoe, perfect for those looking for a canoe that is simple & easy to move around. The Prospector style of hull is one of the most well known, well loved canoes designed world wide.

A symmetrical hull shape that features a mid rocker front to back and shallow arch shape left to right that allows the right paddler to have good levels of control. The 2.5" rocker at either end is enough to ensure spinning the Prospector 16 around is easy, but not too much ensuring that touring style river tripping is still efficient. This rocker also allows for the bow of the boat to ride up and over waves and chop with out too much water entering the canoe, perfect for when either on white water or crossing larger expanses of water like lakes and lochs. The shallow arch roll from left to right on the hull allows paddlers to heel the Prospector 16 over and in the hands of the right paddler gain superb control. A high freeboard (side to the canoe) inspires confidence in new or nervous paddlers giving the feeling of the water being slightly further away. It also allows the Canoe to be loaded up with gear and gives a drier ride in rougher condition. The Nova Craft Prospector 16 really is a go anywhere do anything type of canoe.

The outfitting of all Nova Craft laminate canoes is the same using a lightweight Anodised Aluminium Gunwale to ensure the weight is kept as low as possible. Internally the deep dish ash carrying yoke is actually usable (thanks to the over all weight of the Blue Steel construction) and is an excellent way of portaging the Nova Craft Prospector 16. Ash bootlace seats are super comfortable offering some give through the seats lacing, which makes for a much nicer day on the water. The rest of the woodwork (handles and thwart) are all ash wood to match the seats & yoke along with the varnished finish. Nova Craft Canoes fit built in buoyancy tanks with a self pressure valve to all their laminate canoes, this offers enough floatation for general purpose flat water paddling.

The Blue Steel construction is a very popular laminate amongst those paddlers who want an easy to portage and roof rack top canoe. This laminate is a 50/50 Aramid & Carbon Fibre hybrid material, with Basalt & Innegra woven fabric placed in strategic areas, this allows the laminate to have the lightweight nature of Aramid but with a significantly better strength. The Carbon Fibre cloth helps the Blue Steel laminate to look next level amazing as well as giving added stiffness, translating into a better on the water feel as this increased hull stiffness allows for more efficiency when paddling. Infusing the hull with an inner layer of Innegra and high impact resistant vinylester resin gives that rugged nature required for paddling without that fear of damaging.

While Laminate Canoes such as Blue Steel are tough open canoe they are all really designed as tripping/touring flat water canoes. They can be used on mild white water in the right hands, but impacting any laminate against rocks etc will generally cause damage that will require repairs.

To repair the outer gel coat layer of a Blue Steel Canoe it is recommended to use an un-tinted clear Gel Coat, this means the superb looking cloth remains clearly visible.

Other external colours are available in the Blue Steel laminate, however using a coloured Gel Coat generally adds around 1.35kg - 2.2kgs to the overall weight of the canoe.