C-Forum

As an open boater I wanted to take some family members who no longer paddle as much. I was with a group at the Nantahala this Summer who brought their raft along. THey had a great time and I thought it would suppliment my experiance as well. I was wondering if anyone has had the same interest and what advise you might offer.

hey chuck
your family will get a kick out of it i bet, depending on what river you take them down. my parents liked the Nanty, but i think my brother wasn't totally impressed. but still, it's better than hanging out on the shore eating boiled peanuts, aint it?

a boater friend works on capitol hill and we often joke we could make a killing taking out diplomats on the potomac!

and guiding a raft can actually help you with certain stroke techniques, such as the rudder. you stick the paddle in as a rudder in the stern and just pull in on the T-grip, using the raft as a folcrum! this is really bad for paddles, but extremely effective for the lazy.

rafting also allows you to practice certain things that canoeists would NEVER normally think of on a river
1) Screaming in rapids. Go ahead, everyone else in the boat seems to be doing it for some reason! maybe it's cathartic??
2) Having water fights. This is really weird. I have never thought of doing this with my boater friends after a really gnarly drop. "Dude, we just ran Gorilla!" "Whoa, I'm gonna splash you!" That just doesnt happen. So you can get it out of your system when you're in a raft!
later
Alden

Hi Chuck,

One of my best boatingb buddiesis actually a rafter, he used to be a raft guide 20 years ago and now does it just for fun (always nice to have him around on the river as a safety boat and to carry the lunch, camerabags and such .
He does currently not have Internet access or e-mail, but you can call him, he will answer all your questions. His name Is Rheal and his phone # is (905) 506-1964.

Hope this helps.

martin

I've been guiding on the Hudson Gorge and other locales for the past 10 years...so don't pick on Guides TOO much . I can tell you we're a VERY diverse group. And rafts are VERY good for hauling gear, introducing new folks to whitewater, etc....

If you have any Q feel free to PM or e-mail me, or of if few people would like to to post some "raft basics" here I will (it won't be short, or I'd type it now from work...).

I've used both a 2 and 4 person Shredder for taking folks along on trips. Both with me in the inflatable and out running safety (not swimming ). I've also used rafts but I like Shredders better.
I used the 2 person shredder when the kids were smaller and me being the only paddler - its faster and more functional in WW. The 4 person is great for going down river but its harder to get to front surf or spin and harder to catch eddies in. However, if you have a posse the 4 works well - particularly if folks know what they are doing.
The nice thing about shredders are that the roll up smaller for carrying than a raft but one person can push one around fairly easy even (even a 4 person) on something like the Upper Yough.
Because of the 2 tube design you feel like your in a big OC and use the same style (or at least it feels that way to me). Where with a raft the bow can some times fight with you and be sluggish when your looking to make a move. The stren is less grabby &/or dont take on water too so they are not some much hole bait either.
When last out the wife, who had not ww paddled in about 8 years, paddled a 2 person Shredder with the daughter and moved it about without issue on I-II. Looked like she had paddled the week prior.
Bottom line - if you can get family / freinds out and having fun (not cold or scared) any boat works. Inflatables have there place and can be a lot of fun.
If your looking to buy an inflatable they are expensive - 2 person Shredders go for over $1400 and good luck finding a used one. As for rafts - I don't have a clue! Renting or borrowing works well if only used upon occassion.
Good luck.

Sir Adam, I am not picking on raft guides, it takes a lot of skill to run big water rapids in a raft .
Learned that 3 years ago during a high ewater run on the Kipawa. We were 4 guys in a 13 ft raft. Rheal was guiding, but he used to guide oar and not paddle rafts, so that was a bit of a problem, and of the 2 other guys one was a flatwater canoeist, the other one was paddling for the first time in his life . The Kip starts out with a run of the dam, a 20 ft vertical drop down a 45 degree tongue into BIG crashing waves. Newbie had his first swim there, dropped right out.
In Button Hook we did not make the ferry over from river left to river right (something about out of 4 guys in the raft one only hanging on for dear live and another one almost forgetting to paddle because of the size of the rapid), so we drop into the BIG hole on river left . all I remember is getting thrown into the guy in front of me as the raft hits the foampile and then having a nice long swim...

martin

Sir Adam et al - If you have some raft basics, I am all ears. The raft I found is an Aire Puma. It is about 12' in length. I bought a guide paddle and pump from NRS. I am thinking about foot cups and a small pump to take on the trips. I see us doing the Nantahala, French Broad, Pigeon, and some Cumberland Plateau rivers as skill levels improve. We will take it easy and then progress accordingly

oh baby, ive guided pumas before! those boys are heavy, aint they? we used to be psyched to take them out with customers because they are so "high performance" compared with normal rafts.

i think your family and friends will really hate carrying the stupid thing, but they will have a lot of fun in the puma. we used to use em as four person rafts, but as I recall you could get six in there
Alden

abird- I don't have much to compare the Pumas with, but it is lighter than the one my friend had this year. My son in law and I carried it into the garage and it was easy to manuever. Aire says the best way to store is partially inflated. I set it in front of the jeep on its side and put a bike hook in the 8 foot ceiling and used some loosily tied nylon ropes to balance. I think about 4 plus the guide is what I was thinking.

My idea is to take the raft along with out other boats, i.e c-boats, Blue Hole Starburst, and Spanish Fly and trade out guiding detail. Like someone said. The raft can carry the food, etc.

Safety has always been a big deal to us and this is an opportunity to be together and experiance the rivers in a way that I had not thought of before. To me a raft was a commercial craft. By the way this raft costs $2500 new from NRS plus freight. I bought it from an outfitter as new for $1000. ABout the same as a new canoe or c boat without the outfitting.

did you get a air floor or a foam floor?
mine is a foam, heavier, but i think it handles better.
use mine with the kids on the nanny all the time,
they love it.

that's true -- now that i think about it, it was the foam floor that made ours so heavy.

that will be fun having a raft plus demo boats. have a good time
Alden

Hey all,

Don't flame me for being a killjoy, and I know most of you have the experience to avoid a trip like this, but when I think of rafts I think of a day I spent on the Klikitat two years ago.

I was with a large group of people. We had two rafts and solo boats of various types. We were planning to run a class III section that several members of the group had run before. When we got to the river, it was milky brown and higher than we had hoped for. I was on the fence about running it in my Cascade - I was still pretty green. One of the rafts wanted another strong paddler due to the high level of the river. So, I stashed my C1 and hopped into the raft. Off we went.

Two miles down river we unwittingly strayed onto a shoal that was normally dry. The current was still pretty swift, but the raft was touching bottom here and there. One of the paddlers on the other side of the raft popped out of the boat. She got bounced right out when we boinked on a barely submerged rock.

Twelve hours later, she was in the hospital having her back worked on. This was after many tense hours on the river and a harrowing helicopter evacuation from the canyon that we were rafting in. Her injuries were minor in hindsight, but that was one long day for us all.

Here's my point. Of the eight or ten people in rafts that day, four had never been in whitewater before. If this had been a solo-boat-only trip, we never would have put them on a class IV run (III plus a bit of flood = IV that day.) But, in the rafts, all newbies were thought to be safe. Everyone on the trip that might have known better just let their guard down and went for it.

Enjoy the raft, but keep your guard up. Spend some time looking at how the paddlers are going to hang on to their seats. Talk about what should happen if someone leaves the boat. The usual river running rules about safety and being prepared still apply.

Them's my two cents.