C-Forum

I was wondering how many people out there got started paddling what.Like if you've only paddled C-1,or if you started OC-! then picked up C-1'n?Or maybe you kayaked and then C-1 but have never really paddled an openboat.
I've paddled a canoe since my teens.
Never really been interested in Kayaking,but started running bigger rivers(II-III)in the last 6-7years in old Sawyers and Oldtowns.
Then 4 years ago I picked up an OutrageX and paddled that for a first true WW boat.In the meantime Kayaking started to look fun just for the ability to roll quickly(knew nothing of C-1s at this point.)
Eventually I ran into a couple local C-boaters and got the spark for that.
Now I paddle OC1,C-1,and I have a pretty good kayak roll(though I'm hesitant to double blade down anything of consequence,and dont own a yak.though it is neet to switch up with your kayak buddies and throw them in your boat for awhile)

I was in an OC1 for the first trip in the whitewater canoe class I took, but moved into a cascade from there and OC1 is just a novelty for me now

I started in OC-2 (MR Explorer, Coleman "Marine 17"), then went OC-1 (MR ME), tried C-1 later, tried out K-1 for a while just cuz. Felt weird in a K-1 - sit too low and can't get a "grip" on things.

I know I shouldn't be TOO surprised at the results, but they are interesting so far. I started out in an open canoe (at 3), and have always hopped in and out of them. 15 years ago or so I purchased a kayak (I didn't know C1's existed, and was tired of bailing the OC2 out), then sold it to purchase 2 C1's (my legs kept falling asleep in the kayak ). I then sold those 2 C1's to a friend to purchase the NEW HOT C1...the Dagger Atom.... I still have that boat, and every boat I've purchased since then, for that matter....

I started paddling in a Blue Hole OCA in 1979. It was my brother's boat, one that he still owns. The first boat I bought was a used Mohawk WW 16' tandem boat. I made a ethafoam saddle for it and paddled it solo on many class II runs before buying a solo boat, a Mohawk Scamp. I own a couple of Whitesells, a Caption and a Old Town Appalachain now. My wife says I need to sell a boat before buying another one. I say we need a house with a bigger basement or large storage barn.

I have only paddled open canoes. I never had a desire to paddle a decked boat. I could always paddle whatever run I wanted to in a open boat. I never felt a need to learn how to paddle with a skirt. One might say that I've missed having a more rounded paddling career by doing so. I don't feel I've missed anything at all.

Michael

my first year raft guiding I bought a used Wave Sport Lazer, but I didn't paddle it in whitewater that year. I had borowed a friend's Genesis, I did the milk run and then brown's canyon the second or third time i paddled it. Not knowing how to roll a kayak, and being used to steering boats with a single blade, "besides swiming out of a canoe is about the same as out of a raft, right?" OC just made sense to me at the time. I never did get a consistent roll in a kayak, that extra blade gets in the way. I ended up getting an occoe, and then traded that for an aftershock as I wanted to play more. Next I moved into C1's after "mystery moving" out of the bottom of Dowd's Chute, I wanted to play and run harder rivers and not have to continually dump water. I've paddled a Mr Clean, Delirious, Rockit, and EZ conversions. I still have the Delicious, Rockit, a MR Explorer and I have an Acrobat on the way. Doing things the hard way has always seemed cool to me, C boats, telemarking and fixed gear bicycles, I guess I'm just a masochist

Aric

The Boy Scouts got me started in boats, so it should come as no surprise that my first boats were all aluminum OC2-3. My first whitewater craft was a tackle box - i.e. playing in the rapids while my friend and I took breaks from fishing. nyuk nyuk

My first REAL whitewater craft was a hand-me-down kayak (converted back from a C1) from Adam which to this day still has the training wheels on it (i.e. lots of volume and double blades).

Paddled in the bow of a 17' Tripper my brother owned. Bought a 16' Shenandoah (one of the first group of ten Royalex hulls outfitted in a Luray, VA campground/canoe livery) that fall.

Bought C-1’s after that from Gertler, Peters, and McKnight.

Switched to plastic K-1’s when I got too old to do any real boating.

Started tandem in a Grumman aluminum 17' (with lake keel no less!). Added occasional experience in other large open canoes (ABS). Moved to paddling kayak. Met my wife and built a Gemini III C-2. Moved to grad school at Penn State, and started training/racing slalom with PSOC under John Sweet, moving to a Paramax II, Torrent (as one of the design team), & Torrent XL (again, on design team). Simultaneously picked up C-1 as an adjunct to C-2M, progressing from a Hahn, through an Ultramax, to a Batmax.

INSERT 11-year hiatus due to job pressures & 4 kids.

Re-emerged in paddling three years ago when oldest became interested. Hallelujah!! Too old and fat for my Batmax, so I now paddle a Zealot and sometimes haul out the old Torrent XL for some runs with my kids.

John

I too, got started via the Boy Scouts, on the Delaware River. Having saved my money from working at a fast food "restaurant", I bought my first canoe in 1976 at age 16. It was one of the first plastic canoes ever made, a Keewaydin KT-17. Yes it was 17' long. I paddled it solo and tandem. For flotation I used garbage bags packed with styrofoam peanuts, until one fateful day day on the upper Delaware when the bags burst after flipping. Then I switched to a truck inner tube. My next boat was a Perception HD1 which I actually enjoyed, near as I can remember. After that a MRC "ME". Then one day I bought a Batmax C-1 off of Charlie Harris, or was it John? My first composite boat was a Millbrook Flashback built by John Berry in 1980 I think. OK that's enough nostalgia. I still enjoy both, open and decked.
JKaz

I started kayaking about 8yrs ago and fell in love with playboating. I got pretty good at it in a kayak and being from Indiana wanted more of a challenge while playing around in the pool. Around the same time I saw some video a couple of my friend took of Barry Kennon in CO, and thought C1 looked allot more dynamic. Later that year, I ended up paddling the Upper Gauley at low water with a C1 paddler in a MrClean and got really curious. (I had not had previous personal exposure to cboating...). A couple of weeks later at a pool session someone brought an Atom and I was able to roll it on my first attempt. Within a few weeks of that I converted a Prozone 225 and proceeded to learn Cboating the hard way. Three years later I was able to run rivers like the upper yough again (note, my son is also 3yrs old).

Now, I occasionally jump into a kayak in the pool, but it just feels too weird. They just sit too low and cartwheel too slow...


Take It Easy,

David

It was an old 16' Marine Corps surplus issue aluminum canoe made by Browning. Darn thing stuck to (and hit) every rock down every ww river I paddled. 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 wish I had removed it as I probably could get more for it today (with the price of aluminum) than I paid for it...

Summer camp - 17 and 18' tripping canoes, Alumacraft and Grummans, and then OT Discoveries.

I've only been in a ww kayak maybe twice, once in a pool, and never on real whitewater, and in sea kayaks just a few times too. I think my hamstrings are too tight to sit with my legs out in front of me. As painful as my C-1 is turning out to be, I've found kayaks too uncomfortable.

P.

i started whitewater tripping fashion in a 18 foot Nova Craft Tripper, or something close to that. with 3 inches of freeboard, on a 100000+ CFS river in Northern Canada called the Back. and then i got a solo boat.
and i am doing a trip on the kazan this summer with my father, which will most likely be one of my last big trips with him.
cheers
-isaac

I started out paddling in the Boy Scouts, with tandem OCs. A few overnighters and a couple of 3 day trips had me hooked. Of course, my dad wouldn't buy me a boat, so I did without for a while.

I would rent a canoe if there was an outfitter nearby, and did a few runs in rafts (about 8 trips between the Nanty, and the New in WV) so I had a little bit of a taste for the white stuff. Just didn't get to be on the water enough to justify a boat for a long time.

Bought my first canoe (16' figerglass tandem) about 6 years ago, and beat is up on everything from day trips, a 4-day trip, a bunch of overnighters. I got a few friends hooked, and now our tastes have turned more towards whitewater. On an Ocoee now

Jeff