in the center of the canoe and their secondary stability from the shallow arch 
that's more towards the ends of the canoe.Canoe Stability - If it's got great secondary stability, what good is it, really?
Sure, you can get used to anything but I have to ask why anyone would choose to own a piece of equipment that requires its owner to spend the first 15 minutes of using it getting used to it EVERYTIME the owner goes to us it? I keep hearing this kind of goofy-talk regarding tippy canoes and the people who make excuses for owning some wonder-hull. I also get a kick out of hearing that someone only dumped their canoe once or twice on a canoe trip. It was a great trip - only rolled twice!
If I hear these declarations, I wouldn't give two cents for that canoe:
"It's a little tender feeling when you first get in, but after a while you just forget about it."
"The initial stabilty is a little shaky feeling, but the secondary stability is excellent!"
"It feels pretty stable after we load it with gear."
OK - here's a rhetorical question: If drinkng or eating something that tastes awful requires you to develope an "acquired" taste EVERYTIME to enjoy it, are you a better person after you learn how to like it or just a little dumber, poorer, and have a bad taste in your mouth? You shouldn't have to put up with something that's disconcerting until such time as you "learn" to enjoy it, particularily a canoe. Cigarettes, martinis, fois gras, cigars, raw fish, and onions (I hate 'em) - now these are examples of acquired tastes for us all to strive to achieve, but not canoes. The first five minutes of sitting in a canoe, should be enough to determine if you like the way it feels. It should feel like a pair of old slippers, the Barco Lounger after a long hard day, the wind through your hair while out riding the hog...
If learning how to get used to a tippy feeling canoe is an acquired trait necessary for handling that specific canoe every time you use it, you need to get a canoe that's better for you. After selling more than a couple thousand canoes and talking with a tremendous number of people over many years, I'm pretty well convinced that the vast majority of paddlers much prefers comfortable stability first and foremost. They only realize this AFTER they get past the thrill of the ultralight weight of the kevlar canoe. Most folks come in with the goal of buying a lighter canoe for portages. Bearing this in mind and how strongly so many people feel about the canoe's weight, a lesser salesman would simply push the weight issue "hot button" to make closing the sale much easier. If that's the big tipping point for the customer to buy the canoe, push that specific button over and over and close the deal! That's a great way to do business when sales numbers are more important than the actual customer. This is not lofty pontification by Joe. I've seen this practised over and over and over by many canoe retailers. Sometimes it appears to me that the retailer doesn't care or doesn't know or both.
The most important point to reflect upon whenever considering a particular hull model is that no one EVER drowned on a portage. Ultralight canoe weight is great, but if the canoe is tippy, not user-friendly and downright dangerous on the water (in proportion to the skill level of the actual paddlers), how important is the weight? A lightweight piece of junk is still just a lightweight piece of junk. Based on my real-time canoe-dealing experience: Tippy = dumb: Stable = smart
Heck, Souris River even makes a tippy feeling model. If you want a canoe that needs a load to feel stable, and when it's paddled empty it requires your continual, semi-constant attention, get the Souris River Wilderness 18. You'll get to pay attention to it all day long. Think of the fun you could have!
When I hear the sales pitch drivel with Brand X about "secondary stability" and all the "blahbitty-blah" used to explain why that particular lake canoe feels jittery plus why that's a "good" thing, I just shake my head. Pass the fois gras, please.
Until the Souris River Quetico's came out I'd always heard that it's not possible to have good primary stability AND good secondary stability all in the same canoe. Oh, sure, you can't lay a Souris River Quetico over at a 45 degree angle, but you can lean it over pretty doggone far without rolling it over completely and easily. That's all that really matters because mishaps can and do happen. To me, the word "forgiving" is very important because, like everybody else, I do dumb things on occasion and having a canoe that will catch me when I fall is very important to me as well as to our retail/rental customers whether they realize it or not.
Every canoe can tip over in the right (and wrong) hands and decreasing the odds of tipping is what a good hull design is all about. On top of the safety aspect, I just like the feel of a comfortable, stable canoe on the water. If you can spend the bulk of your day on the water not being too concerned with the canoe as it sits there, that makes for much better time paddling, fishing, shooting, etc.
Souris River Queticos derive their stabilty from their flat bottom in the center of the canoe and their secondary stability from the shallow arch that's more towards the ends of the canoe.
Here's how these two different shapes react with water or even a hard flat surface.
A shallow arched bottom, even when tipped, still has a sizeable portion of canoe being supported by water which is depicted between the red lines on the next image.
As long as there is a relatively flat section of canoe resting on the water regardless of being tipped, the canoe resists going over completely and gives you more time to realize that you need to make changes lest ye be dunked. This is an example of secondary stability and how it actually acts on the water. The larger the distance between the red bars - the greater secondary stability that the hull will have.
A flat bottom by itself is not a good thing. When tipped over to it's chine (the area where the canoe's side meets the canoe's bottom - like a rounded corner), it offers almost no wetted, flat surface for support as you can see in this image. The distance between the red bars is smaller and more like trying to balance on a tight rope. When you do begin to go over, you'll do so suddenly unless you are really quick, incredibly balanced and have great physical wherewithall that allows you to recover deftly. In other words, you'll need your spider powers.
The next drawing depicts what a Souris River Quetico's shape is like when looking at it from straight on. It offers the stability of the flat bottom in the center, the shallow arching in the ends and what we call a sharp "knife" entry in the stem which is the very end of the canoe's bow (or stern). All Quetico's are shaped like this but the Quetico 16 has a bit less flatness in the middle of the canoe because that's how the design lines played out. It has an ever-so-slightly tender feel attributed to having less flat area in the bottom center region. To put it in greater perspective, the Souris River Wilderness 18 only looks like the green knife entry with the red shallow arched part throughout the length of the canoe. The flat blue part in the drawing does not exist in that particular hull.
The next image defines where the flat and arched areas are in a Souris River Quetico.
So there you have it. A canoe without stability is a like a hotdog without ketchup. It tastes OK, and you could get used to it, but that ketchup makes it all complete. It may not be the greatest analogy but I do know that tippy canoes and tippy-feeling canoes are no fun. You really need a canoe that has good combination of primary (flat bottom) and secondary (shallow arched) of the two. Personally, I think the Souris River Queticos where designed by Keith Robinson using a little science, a touch of art and a smattering of luck. These are outstanding canoes and their stability will serve 99% of all paddlers very well.