WW Boats that changed the World

[Louie]

He doesn't use the "y" in his name. You see it was an East Tennessean who was the bystandard.

[Craig Smerda]

Decades ago some bystander watched Dave Simpson run Tellico's Baby Falls in an OC-1. The bystander said to Dave "You're psycho!". The name stuck.

There's many urban legends as to how he got that nickname... And I know almost all of them.

[Jim Michaud]

There's many urban legends as to how he got that nickname... And I know almost all of them.

Craig,

I got this version directly from Dave himself so it's probably true.

Jim

[Craig Smerda]

Dave and I are pretty tight... and I've heard several rendidtions of how the nickname came about from other people that know him as well. It's best kept as one of the many campfire tales that are weaved from boater to boater. Maybe Phil & Louie will give up a couple of the variations they know as well. As for me... I've always called him David.

[sbroam]

Having met Psycho (sp?) a number of times over the year and knowing folks who know him better than I do, I can see how there might have been multiple opportunities for him to have earned that moniker. Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy, I'm just sayin'.

[oc1paddlr]

any of you goforth gang want to add to this. any yall still out there? (i'm thinkin doug is)

[oc1paddlr]

psyco was the only open boater in the goforth gang (i was welomed by francis) lot of good stories lot of talking heads

[philcanoe]

psyco was the only open boater in the goforth gang (i was welomed by francis) lot of good stories lot of talking heads

humm..seems like my old gray van, might of been included, up there in the meadow

another variation...ok, here's one

A couple of the usual crowd (those in the crowd know who...they are/were) had run Overflow a couple times (mighty-big-bad-mojo in those days) , first and 2nd 'D's"... anyway "Dave" heard and wanted to go bad...but no one would give him any beta...so, the story goes... he drove to the put-in, the night before, slept in that old white van..and greeted the group as they arrived the next morning....anyway one of them said - Man You Must Be "Psycho" .....

[Craig Smerda]

psyco was the only open boater in the goforth gang (i was welomed by francis) lot of good stories lot of talking heads

humm..seems like my old gray van, might of been included, up there in the meadow

another variation...ok, here's one

A couple of the usual crowd (those in the crowd know who...they are/were) had run Overflow a couple times (mighty-big-bad-mojo in those days) , first and 2nd 'D's"... anyway "Dave" heard and wanted to go bad...but no one would give him any beta...so, the story goes... he drove to the put-in, the night before, slept in that old white van..and greeted the group as they arrived the next morning....anyway one of them said - Man You Must Be "Psycho" .....

yup.... thet's anuther one.

His other nickname was "dad" long before he was a parent... maybe Louie will weigh in on that.

[Roger]

BTW, who is "Psyco" just out of curiosity. Too bad folks don't use their real names in this forum. JRS

Later on, Dave would be the first to run Gorilla (sans the Notch, I ) believe) in an open boat.

Makes a run down Overflow (Wayne Gentry's Southern Fried Creeking) look like a Sunday walk in the park.

[philcanoe]

i was there, just not on the video... Louie can back me up, he was there with about 5 more oc1 type characters...

we get to Chief-Gorilla it's 300 percent, and Psyco (his spell'n) gets this wilde eye'd look, and says yhaw'll better walk this one...an he reach's up under his air bag and pulls out another life jacket...

...this was in the day of the home-made squirt vest, every body made'em or had someone else make one... even us open canoers had to have one...made u look cool, or like maybe you knew something... and psyco made the the worst, or best, or skimpiest dependin on your point of view ..they looked like little butterflies... i still have mine, decided it'll look better on the wall - than in a pine box

so here we have psycho-Dave and he looks at it, it was a high float version... it'had front - and back floatation, not just material ... so he pulls it on top of the one he's already wearing ...

the rest is history, but you should of seen it ... a wilde eyed two life jacket wearing psycho dropping bombs in the gorilla on a 300 percent green Saturday

just say that somewhere else and see if they know what you're saying

[oc1paddlr]

i remember psyco's colorful story of how he lost his paddle, pulled out his spare, lost it, then pulled out a third paddle all while running 'lost paddle'. i believe his stoy to be true.

[philcanoe]

or how 'Hammer Factor' was named for/by him

[Glenn MacGrady]

An interesting topic, though "changed the world" is a standard that is perhaps a little too stringent.

The responses will depend on whether one is talking tandem or solo, open or closed, recreational or racing.

I will limit my views to my personal experiences with the evolution of popular solo open recreational canoes in the parts of the country where I paddled, mainly California and the northeast.

With one exception, solo boats evolved from tandem boats, and the Grumman dominated recreational whitewater both as a tandem and klutzy solo for a very long period of time. It's got to be on the list just for sheer longevity. John Berry described to me rolling Grumman’s in the '30's and taking them on many first descents with his Washington Canoe Cruisers club.

The possible exception is the Klepper foldboat that Walter Fredrick Burmeister, also of the Washington Canoe Cruisers, supposedly paddled down virtually every river in the east during the '30's through the '50's while writing his two volume classic, Appalachian Water. The Klepper was certainly a world-changing canoe, but it is not usually associated with whitewater. And there are strong suspicions that Burmeister ran many if not most of his rivers from a topo map.

The first move away from Grumman’s that I recall was to the Old Town Tripper, both as a tandem and solo. That was a 17+ foot canoe, but was more maneuverable than a Grumman because it was flat bottomed, keeless and made of slippery Royalex (oops, excuse me, Oltonar).

Then WW boats started getting shorter in the mid to late 70's.

The Blue Hole OCA eclipsed the Tripper as a solo and tandem, as did the Mad River Explorer to a somewhat lesser extent. A lot of rivers were run in OCA's. I thought the Explorer was the better boat because it was much more leanable with its V-hull and massive secondary stability.

Then came the best solo-tandem WW boat ever made, IMO ... John Berry's ME. Again, I'm talking open recreational, though the ME dominated open slalom for several years in the 15'2" class. I suppose I still think of it as the best because it coincided with my most enjoyable years as a WW boater. There were many years on northeast rivers where a club canoe trip would be a long line of (usually red) ME's bouncing down the river.

Shortly after the ME it seems that solo canoes became short. The first I remember in Royalex was the Perception HD-1, which I thought was designed by Steve Scarborough. That boat was unique: it had no primary or secondary stability, and was only at repose when upside down. But it was a breakthrough design.

I always though John Berry's Flashback was a better 13'2" boat than the HD-1, though a little too wet. But neither the HD nor the Flashback had that much recreational impact where I was boating. The ME remained king.

The next challengers were shorter than the ME but longer than the HD and Flashback -- namely, the 14 foot Blue Hole Sunburst and Whitesell Piranha. Lot's of OCA paddlers, who thought the ME was "too hot" migrated into Sunbursts. Lots of ME paddlers migrated into Piranhas. The Sunburst was kind of wet, which was improved by the higher volume and taller Sunburst II. The Whitesell was dry and stable, but was a pig to accelerate. However, the Whitesell (via its marketing genius designer and namesake) surely dominated the open boat waterfall jumping scene.

Then, in the late 80's came an improved batch of 13 foot boats from Dagger, of which the Encore was the best IMO.

Mohawk and other manufacturers soon followed suit, with designers such as Hubbard and Foote in addition to Scarborough, and the race to lower volume and shorter open boats accelerated.

I lost track of these developments sometime the mid to late 90's because my volume was increasing and my time between WW boating trips was becoming longer.

So, I probably haven't added any new names to the list, but it was a pleasant recollection for me of my whitewater days.

I now paddle mainly a Huki V1-B va'a. It's a solo open canoe, and I have even paddled it in some class 1 in the Sierra's and Tetons. Hard to maneuver, though, at 22+' feet.

I would like to ask the OP, Mike, whether he still has Harry Roberts' list of 10 great boats. I would assume Harry's list would have been more focused on flatwater boats.

[Mikey B]

Glenn, Here's the list. Thanks to Paul Knoerr for digging out his copy so I didn't have to find mine

1) Sawyer Cruiser 17'9" - "The first performance canoe to be mass
produced. If this Lynn Tuttle design is still rakish after 22 years,
consider it's impact in 1966, when most canoes had the uncanny grace of a
DaLaval bulk milk tank and all the beauty of the south end of a northbound
manure spreader. The cruiser legitimized "quick for the sake of quick."

2) Mad River T.W. Special 18'6" - The most popular of the pioneer
Supercanoes of the '70's. The T.W. Special was designed by Jim Henry from
a highsided USCA cruiser class stripper that was designed by Lynn Tuttle
and modified in the building (high sides) by Maine State racers Ray Titcomb
and George Walsh. To take it full circle, the original USCA strip boat was
basically the hull form of a Sawyer Cruiser stretched to 18'6", This 18'6"
version became the Moore Viper. However, incestuous as it sounds, the
TeeDub was a honey. -

3) american Sport Tandem - This was a category of boats rather than one
particular canoe, and it didn't exist until this article.... We thought of
them as less than serious canoes. Pretty little boats for lily-dippers and
birdwatchers, but not quite "real canoes". But they are. And time and
sociology have conspired to bring them to the forefront as a group. Now
they don't share a lot of design features, and they surely don't share a
design purpose. But tehy do share the elements of handiness, quickness,
handsomeness, and maneuverability. The boats listed included the Lotus
Egret, my beloved Mad River Malecite, the Sawyer 190, the Old Town
Canadienne 16, and the Wenonah Sundowner 16'6" (which we ultimately know
today as the Solo Plus).

4) Wenonah Jensen 16 C-1 - The 16 was a good little boat, It certainly
dominated racing in it's time, and itwas quick, docile, and readily
available. It brought an army of paddlers into solo marathon racing. And
it took alot of those racers into the backcountry as well. Just as the
Sawyer Cruiser legitimized fast tandems for touring, the Wenonah 16 C-1
legitimized fast solos. This boat has paternal ties to nearly every
Wenonah solo ever made, and the Sawyer Summersong and Shockwave.

5) The Uniroyal "Warsaw Rocket" - The first royalex hull to be produced.
Nobody ever had kind words to say for the hulls performance in flatwater,
it's sobriquet was half geography and half irony. It was okay in
whitewater, but ultimately had a pernicious effect on the sport......it
altered open canoe whitewater from a skill sport in glass boats to an
elastic collision joy ride in rubber boats....It engendered a lot of "spin,
crash, burn" boating at the expense of skill boating. The Blue Hole OCA
was originally a version of the Rocket (Warsaw was for Warsaw, Indiana,
where Royalex was developed). This has spawned the MRC ME, Old Town Otter,
Whitesell Piranha, Mohawk a Daggers current entire OC-1 lineup.

6) Lotus Dandy - What the Dandy did engender was a whole new way of looking
at canoes. There were a few solos around before the Dandy was born, but
somehow the Dandy caught the public's attention and the attention of many
designers. It was and is one of the truly pretty boats ever built. The
overall quality of the Dandy is simply exquisite. And it is certainly a
neat little sport boat by any criteria. This boat singlehandedly spawned
the interest by canoeists to paddle solo canoes...

7) The Grumman Standard 17 - Need I say anything else. I am of the firm
opinion that this redoubtable warhorse of the wilds set canoeing back 50
years..... The Grumman 17 taught the North American public that it was fun
to be out there, which is true, and that it wasn't much fun to just
paddle. Which is false. It simply isn't much fun to (just) paddle a
Grumman. The Grumman is likely responsible for why we all paddle today.
My Dad owned one as likely nearly everyone else on this list. My Dad sold
his three years back for nearly twice what he paid for it.... We had a lot
of fun fishing, going to an island beach in Kentucky Lake, my first
forayinto BWCA, and as a method of family fun... Three cheers for the
Grumman.

8. Blackhawk Proem 11'10" - By any standard, Pat Moore's Proem is a
radical canoe. It's small. It's fitted with a contoured pedestal. It has
a shape that resembles nothing anybody had ever seen on the water before
it. But it taught us that we need to radically rethink the shape - and
size - of our boats. The Proem is radically asymetrical and was the first
canoe to worry as much about what water does after it's been parted by the
bow. The Proem can count as it's heirs, all of the successive Moore canoes
and the Ariel, Zephyr and much of the Shadow series were just more user
friendly sized varieties.

9) Sawyer Starlight 13'4" - The David Yost designed Starlight was the first
contemporary canoe to be widely and agressively marketed as a women's
canoe. It was also the first canoe to be marketed nationally as part of a
sized system of canoes - canoes built to fit people rather then packs.

10 Coleman Canoe - The Coleman canoe is not, surprisingly the worst canoe
ever built. It isn't even close to the worst. But it is surely the worst
canoe to recieve the benefits of a massive public acceptance..... It did,
however, start other people thinking about moderately priced, extremely
durable canoes. And it certainly engendered the Old Town Discovery, which
once you get past the prime criterion for choosing a canoe is that you can
run over it with a car, isn't a bad boat. The Coleman and subsequently the
Disco, have made Canoeing a sport, and have ultimately like the Grumman
brough new blood into the sport.