James saw this on Paddling.net and I am reposting here per his request. Thanks . . .

My wife and I recently paddled the Wausau Whitewater course in tandem canoes and had a blast, but puzzled by our very different experiences in an old Dagger WW (not Caption, maybe Caper. I think it was 15ft) boat and our own Nova Craft Prospector 16. We swam most of the class II+-class III course in the Dagger and had difficulty executing basic maneauvers. With our Prospector (with a modest about 3 inches of rocker) we were able to pretty much do what we wanted and stay dry, seldom having to empty out our canoe. With the Dagger, we emptyed out (or tipped), after almost every drop.

We feel reasonably confident with basic WW maneuvers including ferrying, eddy turns, peel outs, bracing,draws, prys, and even surfing smaller waves. We had a pretty extensive 2 days of WW tandem canoe training (in a WW boat) and were on a 7 day WW wilderness trip on a pushy class II river in Canada (without tipping a loaded canoe). We’ve done several other class II rivers as well. We are not great, but are reasonably confident and competent canoeists.

That’s why we did not understand our experience. We had been more successful in our whitewater lessons in a different WW canoe. We were a little puzzled as to why the Dagger we paddled would be so tippy and so difficult to keep dry? It was expecially tippy with an inch (or less) of water in it, whereas we could confidently surf with the same amount of water in our Prospector. I don’t understand the advantage of paddling a boat that is so finicky in bigger WW. The maneuverability doesn’t seem to do much good if it is hard to stay in the canoe.

So, any comments? We are trying to get more serious about paddling whitewater and tandems in particular and would like to better understand hull design. Do we just not know how to paddle these types of boats? I have a genuine curiosity here. Pls help me out.