On Fri, 11 Aug 2000, B00jum! wrote: > 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. the dancer was about 12.5-13 ft!! but my back ground comes from canoeing, so having 2 blades makes kayaking easy [donning my flameproof suit ;^] <snip> > > > 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. a beginning WW canoeist may be on class I+ water his first year a beginning WW kayaker will often be on class II+ water his first year a beginning WW rafter will be bored on anything less than class III water ~~~~~ [snip] ~~~~~ > > 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. maybe in "the canyon" but here we use I-VI also... this was a III+/IV- but a short duration. my down river canoe is 15'6" --- which makes this boat seem quite nimble ;-) i have done a rough drawing of the rapid, from the top & side views, and put it [temporarily] online at: small [19k] http://www.diac.com/~zen/rap1.gif large [36k] http://www.diac.com/~zen/rap1.gif mark -- #-canoeist[at]dotzen[dot]org------------------------------------------- mark zen o, o__ o_/| o_. po box 474 </ [\/ [__| [__\ ft. lupton, co 80621-0474 (`-/-------/----') (`----|-------\-') #~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~ http://www.dotzen.org/paddler [index to club websites i administer] ---- A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner. -- English Proverb *************************************************************************** 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 - 16:43:59 PDT
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