Mark writes: > On Fri, 11 Aug 2000, Tina wrote: > > > What troubles me most about Mark's unfortunate accident is the fact that he > > was paddling a 14+ foot touring kayak on a class 3 - 4, 825 cfs, rocky > > whitewater river. When queried, he responded that he'd taken it on class 2 > > i also paddle it with some regularity on class III rivers ;-) I think its entirely possible to take a longer boat down class III rivers. After all the early WW boats were *much* long than they are now. It would IMHO, be dependent on *which* class III, what boat and how well you can handle it. > > rivers, and his friends paddled the same boats through the Grand Canyon, > > (8,000 to 40,000+ cubic feet/ second). > > from the website for this boat: > > <snip> > > > <snip: ww vs. sea/touring kayaks: eg. tracking vs. maneuver, etc..> > > don't confuse "touring" with "sea kayak" ;-) > > > I've heard several sea kayak on ww river disaster stories over the years, > > (a Folbot totalled on a class 2 run, Boy Scouts badly bashing up a troop > > of borrowed glass sea kayaks on the Deschutes), but haven't heard any > > successes. Is this a common practice in some areas? > > Tina Tina, I don't think you hear about success stories as often since that isn't 'news'. I do think that taking a longer kayak down a river takes more caution than say river rafting. Its probably about the same class of caution that a WW paddler takes though. > again, it is mainly a matter of semantics, but in colorado, where there is > an extreme variety of water available to paddle, we recognize 3-4 types of > kayak, recreational [kiwi's etc], whitewater [sub 12 footers], touring > [12-16 ft], andd sea kayaks [16 foot+] ... the prijon yukon expedition is > an extremely popular boat in colorado. I'm also given to understand that in Colorado (esp on the mighty Colorado River) a different scale is used for river class. Around here (Oregon), I was taught the Class I-VI system (VI being by definition unrunnable). Often this gets broken down into II+, III+ or IV-. So - is that true Mark? Are you using a Class I-X scale to describe the river you where running? If so, it all makes more sense. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- snark_at_tulgey.org aka Glen Acord http://www.tulgey.org/~snark if ($snark eq "boojum") {vanish("softly","suddenly")} *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Aug 11 2000 - 14:09:15 PDT
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