bill, how much do you weigh, height, foot size,paddling experience, last boat, prefered paddling conditions,favorite color,music,.....oops wrong ad.

there may be some general agreement as to what is good...best is kind of personal. A boat that has the volume for a 180 lb. person plus 80 lbs of stuff may not be the best day paddling boat for a 160lb paddler. what is the best car? I am totally ignorant about all the strip boat designs. Pygmy Coho is a good all around design..... "performance"? there are handling and maneuverability characteristics that enable a boat to "perform" well. "speed" is an overhyped characteristic for general paddling. For a boat to be fast,a paddler has to be paddling very hard. So one can paddle a long skinny boat with 60 lbs of camping gear, but realistically will you be doing that,at racing speeds? A boat with low lateral wind effects probably won't have much exta payload capacity. So realistically how much of a touring payload will you be carrying? would you consider adding extra weight should you be day paddling in high winds?

the responses may be general until you provide more specific info.