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Decked Canoes, Open Canoes, as long as they're canoes!

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what was the first boat you paddle in WW?

Poll ended at Thu Jun 15, 2006 8:58 pm

C-1
0
No votes
Open Canoe
43
81%
Kayak
10
19%
 
Total votes: 53

jscottl67
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Post by jscottl67 »

sdbrassfield wrote:I eventually wrapped it around a rock on frigid December day on the upper tar river (NC) so bad, it could not be removed. I left it in the river and walked out.
I think you need to post that whole story...that was a classic :)
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sdbrassfield
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Location: Flatwater, North Carolina

Post by sdbrassfield »

Man, that is a long story that you have heard a number of times. Your putting me on the spot here.... Lets see....

My bow paddler was inexperienced, had lost his paddle and a spare, and was using a limb from a pine tree to paddle. He had coke bottle glasses and could not see, and the river was pumping class III+ in a aluminum tandem canoe not built for ww.

Lets just say on the 4 mile walk out, he wanted to ditch the soft cooler with 2 sandwiches, 2 pepsi's and 2 beers. I told him if we were spending the nite in the woods I would at least eat and drink and be merry. Well his response was :cry: ...We finally bushwacked out about 3 hours and got to the car at the takeout. All the while, the blind urban bastard was saying we were walking in circles, and he was seeing things move in the darkness of the woods...I finally told him to shut the he_ _ up and follow me if he wanted to get out...To this day he will still not paddle with me...

Will never do that again and never live that one down...Only had to learn that lesson one time.......
SYOTR
Alden
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boats

Post by Alden »

my first boat was a kayak - a perception overflow or something like that. my dad got it for me at a sale. i thought it looked cool. i tried to sell it a few years ago to get money, but my dad wouldn't let me. also tried to turn it into a c-1, but again, my dad put a stop to that. it was really heavy and not a great performer, although watching Jamie McEwan paddle it made me think otherwise. I had it propped up in a corner in my room for a whole year when I first had it. I can't believe I spent all that time not paddling it. The Alden of 2006 would never do that.

Anyway, shortly after that, when I was 18, I got into slalom racing and really began my kayaking career. At first I paddled this piece of junk green boat that I thought was pretty cool. Then I paddled a blue and yellow slalom boat that used to be Doug Gordon's race boat circa 1990. It was VERY cool. I took it on my first runs of Bulls Bridge, the Rattlesnake, the Dryway, T-Ville, the Shepaug and lots of other cool stuff in Southern New England. I really busted up the stern pretty bad, and eventually I deposited it back at the Riverhouse. Not sure what happened to that boat, but I felt really comfortable in it.

After that . . . switched to C-1 and an old Rex Appeal (Bruce Lessels design) that had been Jamie McEwan's. It had very questionable outfitting, and whenever I flipped over, I'd fall out. It also had a very fragile stern that had a lot of duct tape holding it in place. At some point that summer, Jamie sold me a Fanatic, a way better boat. I paddled that boat ALL THE TIME until it got stolen in the winter of 2002.

Also, the boat that I really loved when I started C-1 was my C-1 Forplay, which I outfitted myself. Man, that boat was fun.

Alden
Jan_dettmer
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Post by Jan_dettmer »

I started out whitewater in 95 taking a whitewater clinic. I was in a Mohawk Probe 12 the first day, then in a Viper12 and then in an Ocoee. I loved wwhitewater canoeing and bought a Viper 12 shortly after. I took the class cause I wanted to paddle long wilderness trips in the canadian arctic.
The first trip that summer, I found myself not quite in the arctic but in Jasper, putting in on a flooding Athabasca river cause that was the cheapest way to get a canoe to the arctic. We paddled the Revelation to Ft. Fitzgerald. Since then I was locky enough to be on several long (9 to 11 weeks) canoe trips crossing the canadian arctic back and forth. Canoeing has taken me to some of the great arctic rivers like the Snare, Lockhart, Beaulieu, Back, Coppermine, Baillie, Thelon, Ellice, Yellowknife, Hanbury...

I moved to British Columbia in 2003 and broke my back running a 25 or 30 foot waterfall in a Quake. It was a little bit of an epic day getting out of a canyon and
i told myself no more waterfalls in OCs. That's when I started C1ing. My first C1 was a Blunt, then a Delirious. Both were great boats.

I feel very luck to be able to live on Vancouver Island, probably one of the best places to live if you like exploratory steep creeking. Last weekend wepaddled the last unlogged watershed of the island, the Moyeha River, for the first time. What a great experience it was to hike and paddle through pristine old growth forest for 3 days without any signs of humans and without any information (other than maps) about the river.

I don't really care what boat I paddle. I just somehow ended up paddling C1. In the end, it's all the same sport. For me it's about being out on the river paddling. I'd like to be better in a Kayak, but quite frankly, I suck and am too lazy to put in the time to learn it better.

Cheers, Jan
Is there something like an expert kayaker?
http://www.bc-ww.com
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Taniwha
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Post by Taniwha »

I started paddling in 1984, in a kayak. In the following years I still paddled kayaks in whitewater, that was the only thing imaginable, but switched to canoes in flatwater (being more comfortable and I liked the 'history' and the challenges of learning an effective and much more complex paddling technique).

1991 I kayaked in New Zealand on the Buller River (Lyell Creek Run). I was waiting in an eddy below 'gunslinger' when a guy in an open boat (the one and only Angus!) came zooming down that rapid and eddied out beside me. I looked up at him from below, my pitiful life as a kayaker flashed before my eyes. I was truly seeing the light: "Wow, that's what I want to do!"

Returning home I took my trusty old Old Town Pathfinder onto the most scary grade-II/III-section of river I could find, spilled, survived and was thouroughly hooked.
The only outfitted WW-OC I could find and buy then was an Old Town H2Pro. What a good time we had! Best were always the bulging eyes of my canoeing club comrades, when I paddled down rapids they hardly dared themselves.

Since then I almost never switch back to paddling kayaks, it's like a step back in evolution (except sea kayaks on rare ocean trips. I haven't tried outrigger paddling yet, but that seems like an alternative and a new challenge).
I've paddled the Grand Canyon twice in an OC (Dagger Rival (1996), Esquif Nitro (2004)), was probably the first Open Boater on the Sun Kosi, Modi Khola and Kali Gandaki in Nepal (1996). 2001 I switched to C1 for white water and playboating and I'm enjoying it still.
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