What kind of paddler are you? How hard do you paddle?

[FullGnarlzOC]

Thanks Mikey. Yeah that's what I mean... just hitting moves hard. I've learned to control my energy burst, so I am still hitting MOVES at 100% by the end of the run... or at least close to 100.

Coast into current....then BOOM., make a move and make it fast.

[yarnellboat]

FullG,

I hope you prove me wrong, but I think you're cracked if you believe you're going to build the sport by trying to impress class IV and V kayakers who are already happy doing what they do. And, yeah, they probably have seen open boats roll, boof, spin, 110%, blah, blah before.

I know a lot of good alpine skiers who are never going to be convinced that freeing your heels is a better way to get down a mountain, it doesn't matter how many good telemarkers they see doing what, they just believe telemarking is an inferior turn - and they believe it exactly as hard as you believe open boats are the be-all.

Or, if you do convert some from that small audience, it'll be those kayakers who are looking to challenge themselves with something new, so that they can dial-back the risk as they age, have families, etc. - and you don't seem to think that those conversions will be worth much anyway, since they won't have the goal of becoming the gnarliest open boater anywhere, so they'll (according to you) be doing a diservice to canoeing if they end up coasting on class IIIs.

Hey, I hope you convert some good kayakers, but might you be overestimating your ability to impress & influence?

For example, I'll bet the reverse isn't true - when you see a really talented kayaker give'r and style something impressive, does it make you want to be a kayaker? Didn't think so. Well, that's what they've decided about canoes.

Make some high-end videos and design some great boats, and then you'll be helping the cause! (Thanks Dooley & Craig.)

Pat.

[Lengthy]

FullGnarlz you certainly are entertaining. I really hope you don't hurt yourself, seems like respecting the water is something you haven't learned yet in your 16 months.
I love the enthusiasm you go at it with but do you eat mass quantities of candy or something, you're probably bouncing off the walls at home.
BTW- 16 months in for me I was 7 years old so no I wasn't doing the UY yet. I wasn't on the LY solo until I was 11 but in that time I learned to respect the water before I was on something that was more likely to hurt me. Since then my respect for the water has grown more and more.
Be careful, it can (will) bite you.

[RodeoClown]

Interesting discussion here, and strangely, I agree with a lot of what has been said. I agree that drawing on existing paddlers is a good source for getting people into open boating. I'm one of these paddlers, and know quite a few. Note that I said "paddler" and not "kayaker." Why do we have to look at it as "kayakers" and "canoers?" I think if we look at it as "paddlers" it would be more effective, inclusive, and everyone would have a warm fuzzy feeling... Well, maybe not, but I don't think that the chest thumping really helps. And it doesn't have to be the upper level paddlers. I think there are a lot of people out there at all levels who would be willing to try something new.

I've also got to say that being a good paddler has a lot less to do with WHAT you run and a lot more to do with HOW you run it. I see a lot of people on runs like the Upper Yough who are simply trying to get down it without getting beat down. I'm of the mindset that it's better to build the skills and experience on easier water. Getting complacent with being out of control and getting trashed is NOT the way to step up, because if you do, sooner or later you're going to get trashed in a very bad place. Further more, if you're getting comfortable at one level, doesn't mean you're ready to, or need to, or should, step up. Paddle with people better than you, follow their lines, and get an honest assessment of your skills from them. They'll take you to the next level when you're ready. Unless they're jerks and just want to see you get your butt handed to you.

[insolence]

age: 23
status: student (university), no family, but a boyfriend
paddling profile: decked C1, recreational whitewater for 4 years,
for 9 months now competitive (slalom) and almost daily on the water


I did not have to think what option to pick, number 4 is the only one I can take.

I do seek to challenge myself the hardest way I can find in order to get better the fastest way possible for me. Mostly on a slalom course because it provides an ideal paddler's education before I use the learned skills on the wild, natural rivers.

I can't tell you why I do that.

My goal is so not to prove or show anything to anyone. In fact I could not care less what other people are thinkin about me or about what I do.
I look for perfection, maybe for it's own sake, maybe for the deep fascination and addiction the water effects upon me. I want not to rule the water's powers, but to find the dialogue with them.
There is something I am looking for, but as I said, I cannot really define what it is.
There is just this wish to learn the art of paddling to it's perfection. And to live this dream of the water as intense and often as possible.

I'm writing these words still being under the impression of an adrenaline rushed run I just did this weekend. It was a mighty, big volume class 3-4 run. Nothing to speak of for lot of paddlers. But I'm still in an early period of my voyage, it was thrilling for me. I was with two friends, both good and sensitive paddlers, and I did run it very well without trouble, too. But once more I had felt how incredibly mighty the water is. Maybe it (nature) is something bigger and more complex than a human being can see. How many skills both mental and physical you need to really understand the river and run it. And how many of these skills I still lack. I do respect the river. But I could feel, how easily the river would smash me into pieces - or even kill me - if I would not show a huge respect of it.
I don't know wether I will ever do a serious class 5 or 6. Reaching the required technique and fitness is hard but possible, but dealing with the mental aspects is something I don't know yet how to do or learn it. When it comes to an aim I want to reach, I'm a hardliner who doesn't make compromises nor do I fear the effort of learning something. But the river does not make compromises neither!!! There is no mercy on the water, and the river will always be stronger than me.


The search for the dialogue and of learning this art has taken a big part of my life, it's my dream. Since I realized this and begun living this dream, I live a richer life. I have learned a lot of things about me, what I want and what I can reach and do. Where this will lead or how I can continue it in the future, I can't tell neither. How will it work when I will have a job and family one day? Studying is tough, too but it leaves enough freedom so a combination is possible.....

I will see - the only thing I know is that I can't help it, I need the water. It is an addiction, an obsession. However, I have been given a lot of good things trough it. Such as good friends, precious experiences and skills useful for a lifetime. I do need the water, and I want to learn understanding and reading it the best way I can.
One day, when I will be a good enough paddler I will understand what the river wants to tell me. Maybe that's what I'm finally looking for.

[TheKrikkitWars]

Those are the people that won't plateau. Mark my words.

I voted that, and I'm plateauing right now...

My explanation for it is that we've only had about 15 river days (half of which were last month) so far this year, compared to the 90 odd we got in the same period last year, and then when the rain came last month I developed a fear issue the day before I was hoping to step it up and get on our local "Hard" run (a continuous 4+ gorge, interspersed with a couple of drops graded at a 5). I've not had enough time on the water since to reconstuct my paddling either.

Also the future of our sport isn't intrinsicly tied to running everything the yakkers do (well certainly not for OC1, I think it's more feasible to aim for that in C1) It's in growing the sport, when I switched to the dark side you had cookies and evo-stik, now we just have macho BS...

Edit:

I agree that drawing on existing paddlers is a good source for getting people into open boating. I'm one of these paddlers, and know quite a few. Note that I said "paddler" and not "kayaker." Why do we have to look at it as "kayakers" and "canoers?" I think if we look at it as "paddlers" it would be more effective, inclusive, and everyone would have a warm fuzzy feeling...

Exactly, when someone asked me "why do you canoe" I asked "why do you kayak", and they reeled off a big list of ways they though kayaking was better (all hinged on it being easier, yet also concluded that thus kayaking was more "gnarly"), I told them they were thinking about my question all wrong... and to "try this, how would you tell a non-paddler Why you paddle?"... they eventually replied with "because it's better than not paddling on a lazy weekend" and I replied "funny, that's why I paddle my canoe"... point is that despite the longstanding and contrived rivalry, we share so very much in common with the buttboaters.

I also think you'll be hard pressed to find any C-boaters who started in OC1, they'll all have started in either Trad boats, Grummans or Kayaks... I know that one of the Open Boaters regarded as the best in the UK (though perhaps not best from...) started in trad canoe, but grudginly admits that his OC1 skills only developed fully after he'd learned to kayak on whitewater well (and subsequently given up kayaking). So with the exception of yourself, we're all paddlers, and you're just a whitewater canoer (or canoist or canoeist depending on what you fancy) all alone in the world

[FullGnarlzOC]

I don't think it has to even be macho bs type of stuff that gets people O boating.

And when ur sport is as small as it is... I don't believe we have the lee-way to look at it like 'we are all paddlers'...'it is what it is'

Like I said... all it would take is one outfitter going down, and we'd all be devastated. With kayaking....they wouldn't notice a difference, even if their biggest two companies went down.

You guys can continue to have the mentality you have. It's been working so far right? I mean... I saw a record number of...5OBs out of 2000 boats on the river yesterday

[Bob P]

...
I also think you'll be hard pressed to find any C-boaters who started in OC1, they'll all have started in either Trad boats, Grummans or Kayaks... I know that one of the Open Boaters regarded as the best in the UK (though perhaps not best from...) started in trad canoe, but grudginly admits that his OC1 skills only developed fully after he'd learned to kayak on whitewater well (and subsequently given up kayaking). So with the exception of yourself, we're all paddlers, and you're just a whitewater canoer (or canoist or canoeist depending on what you fancy) all alone in the world

I started out with about 2 years of tandem whitewater, then moved to solo OC1 for about 5 years. Then, C1 cruising for another 4 years (doing some moderate "hair"), transitioning into C1 slalom (and some cruising) for another 6. Getting bored, added in OC1 slalom and cruising for the last 20-odd years. I still paddle hard, but since I'm out there alone most of the time, I don't push the "danger" limits like I did in the beginning years, but I still work my physical limits almost every time out.

I can't afford a new boat every other year...

[FullGnarlzOC]

Bob you just nailed it. And judging from ur videos... you do paddle hard.

Paddling hard, doesn't have to be on the hard stuff. It just means not flowing down the river sitting on a brace most of the time, and half-arse stroking. But continuing to work Hard at what we do.

[TheKrikkitWars]

And when ur sport is as small as it is... I don't believe we have the lee-way to look at it like 'we are all paddlers'...'it is what it is'

Exactly it's not a competition, I think most people have learned to accept that OC boating has a limited appeal, especially when an easier option (kayaking) exists...

If we act like missionaries trying to convert the unbeliving kayakers, then we're doing it wrong, if people are enjoying the river, then we need to enjoy it with them and have good banter.

Like I said... all it would take is one outfitter going down, and we'd all be devastated. With kayaking....they wouldn't notice a difference, even if their biggest two companies went down.

If Esquif went down it would potentially be a big loss, especially if no one else managed to aquire the moulds. Mohawk would be big enough to be felt, but wouldn't devastate the market...

Even if Esquif, Mohawk, Robson, Big Dog, Bell, Evergreen and Mad River all went under, open boating would continue, even discounting Millbrook there would still be the expertise and enthusiasm for getting good glass boats made and paddled... what the community lacks in size is made up for by the unusually high levels of enthusiasm, commitment, and knowledge within it.

I'd also say that kayaking would notice a lot if the two biggest companies went down, as the biggest,Confluence Watersports would take Dagger, Wavesport, Feelfree, Palm Equipt., Perception, AT, Wilderness Systems and Mad River Canoe with it... and Johnson Outdoors would take Necky, Ocean Kayak, Old Town, Carlisle and Harmony down with it... Kayaking has become corporate and stagnated, wheras openboating is still continuing on the by the paddlers, for the paddlers system of old, if we were big enough to attract a corporate investor that may not be the case...

[FullGnarlzOC]

Don't need to act like missionaries. Boating will do the talking. If you ever ran into me and I told you I posted on Cboats... you wouldn't be able to put an alias to me(although one line and you'd have a good idea pretty quickly). Because I dont say jack when on I'm on the river. I let the boating do the talking. That does it's job enough. I don't go a run without having multiple people talk to me about switching to OC. Which leads me to believe... if everyone just made an attempt to put a little bit of a showcase on of what OBs can do... ie, paddle more explosively, and hit some nice moves... then we'd be amazed at how many OCs we'd see on the water in a few years. And companies would be amazed at how many more boats they'd be selling.

But we've got to get ourselves out of this hole... and we are in a big one. New boats are very expensive, which is why you see people paddling around boats that are three times patched over.

[TheKrikkitWars]

Don't need to act like missionaries. Boating will do the talking. If you ever ran into me and I told you I posted on Cboats... you wouldn't be able to put an alias to me(although one line and you'd have a good idea pretty quickly). Because I dont say jack when on I'm on the river. I let the boating do the talking. That does it's job enough. I don't go a run without having multiple people talk to me about switching to OC. Which leads me to believe... if everyone just made an attempt to put a little bit of a showcase on of what OBs can do... ie, paddle more explosively, and hit some nice moves... then we'd be amazed at how many OCs we'd see on the water in a few years. And companies would be amazed at how many more boats they'd be selling.

So let me get this straight, in the past 30 years we've all been paddling like numpties and turning people off to our sport, but now we're all going to turn a magic corner and convince the masses?

It's just not true is it?

But we've got to get ourselves out of this hole... and we are in a big one. New boats are very expensive, which is why you see people paddling around boats that are three times patched over.

Paddlers in general are cheap, I don't see why we should be an exception and new anything is expensive. I know a really nails paddler who's in a 4 year old kayak with over 30 welds, and the inside is lined with scraps of raft hypalon because there was no other way of keeping it watertight for more than a couple of days at a time... He could have afforded a new boat, but spent the money on a creeking holiday in Italy, probably the right choice really.

[oc1kcwlkr]

these conversations have been hilarious lately.

raft guides call it " second year guide sydrome". You can spot it a mile away

so.... how bout those adhesives?

[ncdavid]

I like grilled cheese sammiches.

[Smurfwarrior]

I like cheese sandwiches that are grilled. Only noobs and posers like grilled cheese sandwiches, and I eat it with only one hand. Need to post video on youtube, I feel alone in my eating habits and must make others eat cheese sandwiches that are grilled so that I feel normal.