C-Forum

Enjoy a sneak peek I just yanked off the editor. One of the better shots of me in this marginal rapid by none other than our own canoeninja who made the first documented run with Tommy Last month. They did awesome.

I'm a big fan of the Rkill for intro to Legit Gnar creeking(OC1, C1 or K1). In the clip below is the most suspect drop for a canoe and I've been thinking about it a load projecting my future canoeing skills to my favorite current creeks. The guys walked it as many still do. So what do you think about a Prelude, ledge or Maxim running this......or longer boat in the 11-12 foot range?

Knees?

http://vimeo.com/19314604

Doable... I'd do it. Plop, slide and plop.

As long as one kept upright and with their bow pointed perfectly forward... doable.

The one distinct advantage a kayak has on a shallow manky slide/drop is that you have an extra blade to keep you from suddenly pitching left or right... for the most part. In a canoe... if you flip onside you grind knuckles, elbows, shoulders, face... if you flip "offside"... lord only knows but it won't be good as the amount of speed on that drop could potentially mess you up but good.

I ran Oceana the only time I was down there on my left shoulder after I screwed up and flipped to my offside on a little curler... it sucked but at least I didn't pitch right and go into the thing face and elbows first. Ran the Green the next day and nearly did the same thing at Rapid Transit... but squeaked by. Since then... I've learned to look at slides at lot more intelligently, with a plan A and plan B.

Some days I wish I owned a full faced helmet... not that I'm "pretty"

Slides can't be tricky but totally manageable as long as there aren't any major "pitch you over" protrusions.

This make sense?

Doable..Sure..

Pretty..Probably not..

Looks like planting the bow is good possibility..from there its a crap shoot.. upside down and sideways? Drop pool right? Friendly little flusher at the bottom..roll up.

yeah I heard ya craig..... anyone, wanna take a stab at the tier impact aspects. knees? Bow? for all the runs I've seen and dropped at flirting I've never seen anyone get thrown to the left or on the wall (but yes close)... It's not an attractive drop unless the very steep portage is very icy. It looks to me like a likely canoe buster....? We've had talks about how bad a Detonator and viper would fair for royalex reasons and how good a Ledge or Prelude might do. Care to go down the what if trail along these lines.

I'm not sure what the huge issue is.... it looks doable in a L'Edge, no real danger other than the impacts and that comes down to proper outfitting and the ability to roll up and the bottom if you flip. Full face, elbow pads and maybe even shoulder pads... but very doable....

It goes, and it goes way, way, way better than it looks. I remember watching 4 people run it cleanly, and standing there thinking "there's no way this is runnable." Then I got in my boat and ran it, and it's a smooth, fast ride. I'll do it in a canoe.

...and there ya go....

Creeker wrote:yeah I heard ya craig..... anyone, wanna take a stab at the tier impact aspects. knees? Bow? for all the runs I've seen and dropped at flirting I've never seen anyone get thrown to the left or on the wall (but yes close)... It's not an attractive drop unless the very steep portage is very icy. It looks to me like a likely canoe buster....? We've had talks about how bad a Detonator and viper would fair for royalex reasons and how good a Ledge or Prelude might do. Care to go down the what if trail along these lines.

Hard to say completely but I'll take a stab at it based soley on one video that doesn't closely show all the physical characteristics of the entire drop up close.

Knees... shouldn't be an issue from what I can see. Bow... looks like too long of a boat without a good kickup may piton a tad depending upon the ability of the paddler to lift the bow himself or the bow naturally rising when it hits the first pillow. Also there is in some cases a reverse effect with a longer boat that when the bow lifts the stern sinks... this is an undesirable thing that can really jack your momentum up... but once again it'd be subjective to seeing it up close and personal. A shorter 8-10ft boat does have a bit of an advantage on double drops or in instances when a quick transition happens due to their short length and rocker combined with the ability of the paddler to transition more weight and momentum from the bow to stern or vice versa. SpanishFly taught me a lot about this... kind've like a teeter-totter. How the material would hold up on any boat... no clue as once again it looks manky but I can't see it up close and personal. We have a couple rivers around here that have similar features... slate and volcanic rock all on the same rivers locally can make for an interesting day on your boats depending upon water levels. The biggest danger to any boat being the sharp edges of the shelves as you go over them scratching and knifing the hull or hitting an unseen protrusion that may cause a pressure related stress break. Top it off with 8lbs per gallon times ??? gallons of water in the boat (plus it's literally ice water when we're up there) and the potential for severe damage is fairly high. I've seen kayakers break their brand new boats on one run and I've seen a few take multiple seasons of abuse up there. Thusfar we've been lucky with our canoes... but my friend and I both have SpanishFly's whose days are numbered due to this type of abuse. There's no gaurantees... when you paddle this kind of stuff you are taking the chances of doing damage to boat, body, mind and pocket-book. Overall... I don't feel a canoe is bound to break or get damaged any more than a kayak... but with a canoe there are a couple additional factors that may lead to the potential for ugliness. That said... I'd feel fairly safe saying this drop could be run nearly dry in most any canoe... but I'll leave the rest to Jeremy as it's in his backyard and he's seen it up close and personal and previously done it. I trust his judgement completely.

RodeoClown wrote:It goes, and it goes way, way, way better than it looks. I remember watching 4 people run it cleanly, and standing there thinking "there's no way this is runnable." Then I got in my boat and ran it, and it's a smooth, fast ride. I'll do it in a canoe.

But... will you do it in a canoe FIRST?!?!?!?

Amazing how sometimes things that look hard on video are cake in reality... until you see something you know is incredibly difficult easily cleaned by someone on a video... and then you actually see it in person. That's when the portage trail becomes attractive and you suddenly have a hidden ailment that goes away a half mile downstream. There's no crime in walking though...

"I'll run it, next time"
Jerry Beckwith

I'll do it first if I'm having a good day and no one else does it before me.

The backstory behind that drop is pretty good. For years everyone considered it totally unrunnable, as looking at it, it looks like your going to piton your brains out- or break you back if you boof. Then one day someone swam out of the hole above it... over the drop. He told me all he could remember was standing at the bottom, somewhat bruised up but with no major injuries, thinking "I can't believe that happened and I'm still alive." One of the other local paddlers decided that if you can swim it, you can probably run it. He set an empty boat over it first, and rather than piton, it transitioned smoothly onto the slide part, and rocketed away cleanly. Despite concerns from the rest of his group (after all, it was an unrunnable drop) he carried back up and fired it. The rest of the boys then followed.

[img]http://www.americanwhitewater.org/photo ... /14586.jpg[/img]

My best friend is the guy that swam it......just for the record.....a body xray and a complete bruise from the knee to the shoulder on on one side. Very difficult to walk, sleep, sit for a week

I started to think about these big drops and physics for canoe outfitting. Richard explained to me how he had 1 inch holes in a Maxim bulkhead above the thighs to absorb impact (flex/squish points). Then I recently noticed a note about blocking out the front of the knees for bigger drop running. This so you don't push through your normally tight bulk head that will flex and your soft body that may finds ways to squish awkwardly through given rough physics.

Is there a tradeoff for bulkhead vs 4 straps for this kind of larger drop running where you prepare for plugging, bad hits or mistakes.
While I'm projecting out there are there any other coach'm up tips you guys might have? tweaks on outfitting specific to safely running bigger drops like this?

btw - thanks for the replies so far

I'm in the habit of gluing extra minicell blocks in front of the bulkhead at the sides and bottom and glue the thwart to the bulkhead. All this with the thought of helping to prevent it from shifting forward if I take a heavy hit. The inflated airbag prevents my knees from sliding too far forward and I pad the cockpit out in all directions. I think hip pads help when thrown side to side against things. Toe pinch is a big issue, so I trim the bottoms of the pegs to prevent that.

Not that i have ever ran a drop of this magnitude, but I inadvertedly did a test of the Bulkhead in my Prelude when I ran Big Splat and ended up a bit too far right and ended up pitoning the splat rock. The glueline of my entire bulkhead/saddle assembly shaeared and moved about 4-5 inches forward. there wos a big temporary dent in the bow of the boat. But I was ok, all i had to do was kick the dent out, kick the saddle back into place, swallow my pride (I swam) and keep going.

Bottomline is, I don't think that I would change much on the outfitting of the Pyranha Prelude, except for the addition of thicker and denser foam pads for my knees. I don't think I would ever slide too deep into the bulkhead, it would rather blow out before that. And I might add some padding to the front thwart, just to be sure.

TGG!

i want a peice