creek boat reviews

[JFD]

in case anyone's thinking about conversions:

C-1 Creek Boats

After several failed conversions this year, I finally found a creek boat to replace my Blunt. I’ve tried a lot of different designs over the past few years, and this is a summary of what I think is good and bad for creek boat designs. It’s just my opinion, and I’m not getting paid or getting free boats from anybody. I’ve never paddled slalom boats, and I don’t know a dam thing about technical boat design, so I’ll keep this in pretty simple terms. I always buy my boats well-used so I don’t feel so bad drilling holes and then beating the large steaming pile of dog doo out of them on rocky creeks. I weigh about 150 lbs, so take that into account when considering if the boat is good for you. Most of the paddling I do these days is in northern West Virginia on class 4 and 5 creeks, but I have a good bit of experience all over North America and some down south too. The design characteristics I like are going to work best for tight steep creeks like the Upper Blackwater or the North Fork of the Blackwater, the Green Narrows, or other similar runs, but may not work quite as well out on big volume rivers like the Stikine. (If you’re paddling the Stikine, you probably don’t need my advice on boat design anyway.)
Here’s a list of the boats I’ve paddled in the past few years: Cascade, Atom, Rockit, Godzilla, Blunt, H3 245, Embudo, Nomad 8.5, Nomad 8.1.
The most important thing I’ve found for a good creek boat is a bow that stays up out of the water. It’s hard to control a boat with the front end underwater. This is important when you’re punching a hole or landing off a boof. A lot of hard rapids start with a small boof at the top, and you don’t want the nose to be down in the critical part of a rapid. The design characteristics that give you a good floating bow are big volume up front, lots of rocker up front, and a wide hull platform in the bow. Of the boats listed above, the Nomad and the Blunt are the best at surfacing. The front end on the Nomad 8.5 takes a hades of a lot of water and force to go under. The Liquid Logic creek boats, the Deisel, and EJ’s new creek boat (Rocker) look like they also have this. My Blunt was a bit modified (extra rocker in the front due to a hard piton), but the regular Blunts also stay on the surface well. The Cascade does this too, but it’s kind of in a class of it’s own. The boats that don’t do this well are the Embudo and Godzilla. The H3 probably lies somewhere in between.
The second thing to look for is stability. While unstable boats are fun to paddle, they become much less fun when you’re scared shitless. Or when you’re gambling on an offside ferry in front of a sieve. Wider boats tend to have more primary stability, so the Blunt and Nomad are good here too. The Embudo and Godzilla have a lot of side to side play before you feel a stable edge.
A creek boat should also be able to pivot quickly. The shorter boats are good at this, but it also depends on the hull design. Flatter hulls will probably allow you turn faster. A couple of these boats have good compromises between the planing hull and displacement hull. The Blunt is just about the perfect mix. The bigger Nomad (8.5) takes a lot of torque to turn it (at least for my size) and it just doesn’t pivot quickly. I like a faster turning boat. The move I like best is when I’m dropping into a bad hole on my offside and I ride the backwash up just far enough to pivot to my onside. This will often keep you out a swim situation. Short boats have other obvious advantages on creeks, mainly in nailing boofs and avoiding pins.
Another word about hull design. The true planing hull is not much good for your back when you land off a tall drop. It also can throw you when you hit a rock or when you’re on a shallow slide. This is particularly bad for c-boaters because you don’t want to be thrown to your offside on a slide (can be very ugly). It does however give a good skipping surface to stay on top of the water when moving fast, and it turns quicker. I think the best hull design is a nearly flat hull, not quite planing, some roundness to it.
One thing I like that some people will disagree with is slowness. I have found that slower creekboats often work better (at least for the type of creeking I described above). This is not always true. For example, on the left line at Big Splat at 7 feet you want a lot of quick acceleration and speed. Most times though, especially when the water is high and the creek is flushing fast, a slow boat will allow you to think ahead and deliberately make moves. A slow boat has kept me out of tree strainers more than once. If you need to punch a hole, the quick surfacing bow and a boat that pivots quickly will usually keep you out of trouble. You can still get quick acceleration for a boof with all of these boats, even the slowest among them. The bad thing about slow boats is the difficulty with ferries. Faster boats will allow you to make much more difficult ferry moves, even moving upstream sometimes. Even though I like a slow boat on hard creeks, the fast boats are more fun to paddle in general. Some of my best days on the river this past year were in the Cascade. The other fast boats on the list are the Embudo, the H3, the Rockit, and the Godzilla.
The Blunt has been my best creek boat. Unfortunately, it’s no longer made and I have now cracked two of them. It turns super fast, stays up on the surface, and has the right hull design for landing big drops. I’ve heard some people say that it backenders too easily, but I can’t remember ever doing this in my Blunt. If you’re back-ending, the saddle needs to go further forward. I moved mine way up (setback of 9 inches to the back of the cockpit rim). Even with the saddle far up front, the Blunt boofs flat with no effort. I also like the bow smashed upwards to give a little bit of extra rocker. The best way to do this is to find some kayaker to piton and break their ankles prior to converting the boat.
My new boat is the Nomad 8.1. It’s still in the conversion process, so I can’t give a great description, but I think it will turn faster than the 8.5 and may even surpass the performance of the Blunt. All of the boats I listed are good designs. For class 4 and easy class 5, the Atom, Godzilla, Embudo, and Rockit are fast and fun. There are some other boats on the market right now that will make great c-1 designs (the Deisel, Crux, Rocker, and the El Jefe). The Dagger Mamba may also work well. I’d like to hear about the Fatboy too. If you want a well-tested, cheap creek boat, find a used Blunt. Hope this helps and maybe you won’t have to huff as much glue as I have in the past few years to find a good boat.
Jay Ditty
jackditty@hotmail.com

[willlyons]

Nice post Jay. Well put. The Blunt is definatly the most fun boat I have ever paddled (playboats included). It just paddles like a boat should. Not end over end and upside down and in the air. It likes to ride over everything and I feel it responds extremely well to body movements. A little edge and you can carve the sweetest eddy turns. I think of all the new creekers, the Rocker and the Jefe look to be good. Doubt I'll be getting a new boat anytime soon, but if someone out there has the money to spend we could use a guinnea pig:)

Take care,
Will

[racer x]

man, we are all in this together. i too have the old cracked blunt. it is limping through life with some good duct tape patches and surviving mainly due to not being used. jan's reviews made the nomad sound pretty good. im interested to see about the drakkar fatboy.
Alden

[nonracer z]

Yeah, that'll be awesome to have a C1 dedicated creekboat. I hope it is at least 8' long. Any clue when it'll be done?
The big Nomad looks good but it's HUGE. I think, like Jay, at 150lbs it would be somewhat more difficult to push around than the Blunt. maybe I'm just spoiled...
will

[James]

None of you guys have paddled a wavesport Y conversion? I set up one a couple of years ago, it works for me but I do wonder how much my missed lines are "operator error" versus the boat.

[billcanoes]

Racer and Non Racer,
The Fatboy will be just shy of 8'5" and almost 29" wide, so it will have lots of volume and should be fast and stable.

James,
I had previously considered a Y, when I was debating what to convert. I was wonderring if you could edge the boat? It looks simillar to the CFS I used to have, as a K1, but I couldn't tell if there was enough chines on the Y for edging. Thoughts?

I'd like to try a H3/h2 255 also if someone has one, and a T4. I probably wont be able to buy one, I've committed a lot of capital recently, but I enjoy trying new to me boats.

Bill Reap

[Guest]

I paddled a Y for a month and a half in New Zealand last year cause it was the only boat I could find that would convert relativly easily. I thought it was pretty good actually. It wasn't very fast to accelerate, but it held a line really well. However, if you got pushed off line, it was a bitch to correct. Boof's pretty well, felt really safe. It's stable and pretty big, there's lots of boat around you.
I paddled mostly Class IV-V rivers, most of the classics basically. I was a little sketched about paddling that in a boat I had never used but the Y did a fine job of getting me down the river. Plus, you can find cross-linked ones.
will

[Jan_dettmer]

Jay, that is a good write up.

Personally, I want almost the same in my creeker with 2 things that differ a little. For me, speed is pretty important, especially when it is getting pushy. When I paddle in low water and bounce off of rocks lots, I don't care about speed but some moves are just a lot easier for me in a fast boat.

The other thing I really like is quick acceleration. I don't mean great speed, I just mean the number of strokes you need to get the boat up to speed. When paddling steeper stuff I often find myself in an eddy just before a horizon line with a must make boof. Then its nice to be able to get the boat up to speed easy and fast. I found fast boats often don't accel. quick.

What I think I learned from the Nomad. The decks of a creeker should be as smooth as possible and have no large flat surfaces to make it as predictable as possible when you get water on the decks (e.g. going deep or punching holes or just fu*^%* up).

I like round bottom with smoothed out edges like the Blunt and the Nomad have. I have the impression that the Nomad carves better. It really snaps into small eddies. My Blunt did not do that. On one of my favorite runs here, Harris Creek, I catch eddies no problem that were always a little sketchy before.

For punching holes, I like a sleek bow. The Blunts bow was too wide. It did not punch nearly as good as the big Nomad does. To not get backendered out of a hole it is nice to have a pronounced arc on the back deck. This depends on the weight of the paddler though. Very light paddlers in a big boat like the Blunt don't back ender. Bigger paddlers can ender all over th place in the same boat. (I'm 175, my backrest is 9 inch from the cockpit rim)

I did not like the Embudo too much. It's nimble and quick but too tipy to be comfy in gnarl for my skills.

I have trouble with quick off side turns in the 8.5. But I'm getting there

Hey, once you can compare the 8.1 and the 8.5, could you post that? I would be very interested.
I would also be interested in a pic of your outfitting.

Cheers, Jan

[MotorCityOC-1]

Jay- really informative review. One question: you mention the Rockit early on as a decent creek boat that you've paddled, but you don't have much to say about it after that.

How does the Rockit compare to the Nomad, Blunt 8.5, etc.? You put the Rockit in the same category as the Atom and the Cascade, and say that they'll all be good for class IV and easy class V creekin', which seems weird to me, as those three boats all seem very different. Class IV and easy class V is what I'd be getting a creek boat for, and I still think I want a Rockit. Not only are they dirt cheap, but it seems a better choice for a 200 pounder than the Nomad or the Blunt. Does that make any sense to anybody?

What am I gunna NOT LIKE about the Rockit if I convert one- or like better about the Nomad of the Blunt?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Guest]

I would'nt recommend the Blunt for anyone much over 160lbs. I think that weight ranges for C1's are really a little lower than for K1 just because you can move your weight around so much more. I don't really mean this in a good way, but if you are 180lbs in the blunt, and you punch a hole and your weight is just a little back, it will back ender whereas if you were in a kayak you couldn't get your weight that far back (and that high for that matter).
will

Sorry, havn't paddled the Rockit. I've talked to Jay about his rockit though and he said it was a really good boat. About the only specific thing I remember him saying is it boofs really well, and it looks fast. I've thought about trying to find one to convert just for something a little longer.

[James]

First off, I have never paddled the rockit, friends have a k1. Just to note though, it is from a previous generation of creek boat, very rounded hull. I would think it would have primary stability similar to a log, not what you want in sketchy situations. Let`s see what Jay or anyone else who have used it have to say.

Good review of the wavesport Y by will which matches exactly my experience. seems easy enough to turn, does not accelerate that fast, but once off line tough to bring back. edges are soft, this boat would lock into a side surf in a hole pretty good. I wish for more primary stability, but want more speed, acceleration and everything else under the sun too.
Interesting discussion.

[sbroam]

As I stated in another post around here somewheres, I ain't much of a creeker but I do have a Rockit. It is a fast boat for at least two reasons - it's length and it's weight. The absence of walls makes a big difference both in weight and accessibility to the interior, which should be similar for any of the Prijon (blowmolded) boats. The previous owner made walls for it, but I didn't see the need for them since I, at 210#+, can stand on the deck and it doesn't noticeably deflect.

It does not turn as well as I would like, but that is comparing it to converted playboats and other boats that are "pivot turnable" (I mean, you can sink the stern). It's been a while since I paddled a Cascade but I'd say it turns at least as well as that. It might also turn better for a lighter paddler.

As for stability, it is a narrower boat and does lose some primary but does have a reassuring amount of secondary. It rolls like a log and by that I mean *fast*.

I haven't run many steep drops with it, but get the impression that it would surface well because it can be hard to ender. In a pourover play spot here, I have to jam it in just so to get the boat up, and then it wants to shoot backwards more than go up.

If anyone is interested, I can bring it up to the Armada in May.

Scott

[JFD]

To say more about boat speed that was mentioned in earlier posts, I think the slower boats work better for both tight rocky creeking and big volume creeking. Even for high water runs on the Lower Meadow or Russell Fork or for small creeks near flood stage, I would prefer a slower boat. This is in part due to the design characterisics that make a boat slow (short with a lot of rocker.) But it mainly slows down the action and chaos and gives you the chance to deliberately paddle in control. You can catch the backwash of holes or use wave features to slow down. This is much harder to do in a longer, faster boat. The only time I have found that a fast boat is a true advantage is on big volume wide rivers, where you must make prolonged moves to avoid big wide features (like a 40 yard wide hole). In these situations, you have to keep the boat up at a high speed for an extended period of time (more than just 5 or 6 strokes). Speed for an extended period just usually isn't necessary. Acceleration however, is huge (on small creeks and big volume). But I think acceleration has little to do with boat design and everything to do with the driver. I have found very little difference in the acceleration of all the boats mentioned above. If anything the, weight and total size of the boat may be the some of the important factors affecting acceleration.
The way I think of creek boating is that you are sitting stationary on a patch of water (that is moving downstream). Every now and then the whole complex of water and you meets an obstacle. You can either lean forward or back, pivot sideways, lean side to side, or accelerate or decelerate for a few stokes. These are just about all the motions that a boat needs to do. You only want a little bit of speed differential between the boat and the water. The older boats were not built with this idea in mind. They were built for moving on top of the water surface, rather than sitting stationary on a moving patch of water.
Someone asked about the Rockit: I paddled the Rockit for a long time. It's a fine boat and can handle class 5+ water in the right hands, but there are many better options these days if you want a creek boat for gnarly water. For someone in the 200lb range, I think the Nomad 8.5 is going to be hard to beat. The Nomad has a lot more primary stability than the Rockit. That is probably the biggest performance difference between the two. The Rockit is relatively fast, boofs great, but is a bit long and turns a little slower than other boats. It also has a true displacement hull, which feels really nice when landing things taller than 20ft, but otherwise doesn't perform as well as the flatter hull designs.
Hope that helps. By the way, its' usually a bad dry spell when I post twice on the computer in the same week. Any end in sight?
Jay

[Guest]

Jay,
Thanks for all the input. I hope Marko of Drakkar gets a chance to read this stuff before he completes design of the Fatboy. Lots of helpful information in this post.
SYOTR,
Bruce

[cheajack]

In this excellent discussion on creek boat conversions, no one has yet mentioned the Perception Overflow X. I had one and thought it the best C-1 I ever paddled. It was fast, nimble and had excellent secondary stability. The only problem I had was that I could not get my knees far enough apart to be comfortable and with the large cockpit, I had to keep the straps cinched down pretty tight.

There has been some mention of the Rockit. Mine was fun to paddle, but very tippy.

I have heard a lot of good things about the Savage Skreem and would like to try one, but am having a difficult time finding one to buy.

Jack