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Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 12:57 pm
by PAC
I remember when you were considered a wimp if you paddled a Royalex boat equiped with flotation and thigh straps. Real paddlers only paddled 17-foot Grumman aluminum canoes without any stinking flotation.
Jim ...really! Did ya have to post that...????

Now we're going to have to put up with trolls as too...
No Royalex
No thwarts!
No floatation
No pfds
No helmets
etc., etc., etc.....

Oh darn... now what have I done... giving up ideas like that! Errrrrrr...... :lol:

PS: Can't wait to see "someone" on the UY in an Grumman aluminum going old school without floatation helmet or pdf! Well actually I'd rather not see that!!! :o

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 1:19 pm
by ian123
None of those distinguish open boating from other paddle sports.... dealing with water in your boat does.

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 1:23 pm
by ian123
I m betting half of these posts are from decked boaters. You wouldn't get it.

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 2:04 pm
by cheajack
I'm 68, had four spine surgeries and would have to give up paddling if I didn't have a pump. I don't run rapids with it on, but happily empty my boat at the bottom of rapids. In the spring in the south sometimes hanging onto a branch with one hand and hitting the switch with the other. I always try for the driest lines, but in a Skeeter or Quake often the chosen line is just less wet. I'm glad I have a pump.

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 2:20 pm
by Craig Smerda
no outfitting...

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 2:55 pm
by milkman
It's not how you bail, it's how you paddle. Though personally, I like a little quality time on shore dumping my boat, as well as a few hours without electric devices.

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 3:17 pm
by ohioboater
One of my non-paddling friends currently is complaining about a recent pro-am cyclocross race that was won by a guy on a dual suspension mountain bike. For those of you who never heard of the sport, 'cross involves racing an off-road course on road bikes with knobby, but still skinny, tires. The courses usually are muddy/nasty and include barricades, steep hills, etc. designed to force riders into dismounting and running. The sport used to be nothing more than winter cross training for road racers and pre-dates mountain bikes, so the rules don't really address them beyond banning forward-facing bar ends to prevent people getting speared in a crash. The guy who won this race was able to ride many of the obstacles that everyone else was having to dismount and run on.

The bike he used was perfectly legal the way the rules are written, but 'cross purists are all over him for not observing the "gentleman's agreement" to only use a modified road bike. Like open boating and c-boating, 'cross has a conservative contingent that looks down on any technological change that makes things "easier." Heck, disc brakes are still banned by the UCI, I'm pretty sure. Hard core 'crossers insist that cantilever brakes are the only appropriate equipment. If you've ever used such brakes at all, let alone on a long, steep, muddy descent, you'll know it's a lot like running a long rapid half full of water. Add road bars and skinny tires, and it's a lot like doing it in a Grumman with no bags.

It's not a perfect analogy, since we're talking formalized racing. Probably a closer comparison would be the use of the Spark in slalom rec races, since that's basically a purpose built race boat designed to just meet the standards for a category that originally was meant to accommodate the "I can't afford a dedicated race boat" crowd. It's also possible that 'cross rules need to be tightened up, since getting off and running is supposed to be an unavoidable part of the sport.

Anyway, I found it amusing to go from a thread in one niche sport to a thread in another niche sport where conservatives were up in arms about people choosing not to handicap themselves in specific ways, so I think the comparison holds water (so to speak :lol:).

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 3:33 pm
by TheKrikkitWars
ian123 wrote:You wouldn't get it.
Oh I get it all right, there's a common thread running through all the people who've been posting "no pumps".

I also have an idea why you might all be so keen to hop out of your boats constantly; perhaps a collective decision to only go paddling after 16:20...


Ohioboater:
I ride cross, it's fun in a masochistic, muddy kind of way and I can see how the lack of dismounts would spoil it as a sport (well, would essentially end it's existence as a separate sport from XC).

Disks much like pumps change the nature of the game, but they fail to remove the defining factor...

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 3:55 pm
by GSG
As we are, for the most part, in a non-competitive sport I find it pretty puzzling why people would be so passionate one way or the other. I'll personally (probably) never have a pump in my open boat. My attraction to open boats has it's roots in paddling traditional canoes on flatwater. Obviously I'm stretching that notion pretty dam far in my partially decked L'edge, but for whatever reason adding electronics just seems to be one step too far.

Again, this being a generally non-competitive sport my main objective is getting the most satisfaction out of it. I far prefer to eliminate the problem all together, in a C1, then to look for convoluted Band-Aid solutions. In my mind adding a pump to my open boats would just be delaying the inevitable evolutionary path of moving to a C1.

As far as my traditionalist sensibilities are concerned, as long as I'm kneeling and controlling my craft with a single blade I still get the satisfaction that attracted me to canoeing in the first place.

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 4:47 pm
by jscottl67
I don't paddle that much any more (whitewater at least - none within a reasonable distance) but will throw my 2ยข in, which is what it's probably worth. On a paddling trip, I had an issue with one of the flotation bags (valve stem) with my Ocoee and borrowed a spare bag from a friend. My bags were 48" front and rear and I ran a pump when it got wet (Ocoee was cut down and pinched so it was fairly wet) - the bag I borrowed was a 60" bag that I put in the front. I didn't move anchors but the bow was very full of air bag.

On the same river, in the same boat, with the same paddler, running the same lines, I didn't need the pump a single time all day. Had there been 2 60" bags in that 11 foot boat (or a 60 and a 54), I doubt a pump would be necessary on any river. I've seen recent posts referencing 48" and 54" bags in boats that are less than 9 feet in length. I'm guessing it would be nearly impossible to even come close to sinking a boat outfitted like that, or even getting enough water in it to make it sluggish.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have flotation - I just have a funny feeling that at some point the bags, foam bulkheads, foamed out sides, etc. make it less of an open boat than an electric pump does. At what point does an open boat become a hard shelled inflatable?

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 4:55 pm
by Sir Adam
There are WAY more open boaters than decked boaters on here.

Regardless of what y'all paddle, I hope it rains in your neck of the woods soon. Folks clearly need to get out on the water (and way from the computer!)

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 4:58 pm
by ian123
Inflatables are self-bailing no?

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 5:12 pm
by jscottl67
ian123 wrote:Inflatables are self-bailing no?
Nope - not all of them - the ones that aren't, the paddlers hop out and dump.

There was a post on the forum about a self bailing canoe - believe it was a spanish fly with holes drilled through the sides to lose most of the water. It basically relied on the air bags for flotation....

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 7:23 pm
by dafriend
To pump, or not to pump, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of FullGnarlz,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to jump, to dump
No more; and by a pump, to say we end
The arm-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That "no pumps" is heir to?

Re: Pumps

Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 7:29 pm
by milkman
I think we have a winner.