Re: [Paddlewise] accident scenerio: Successful uses of Sea Touring Kayaks on WW

> Tina wrote:
> } Subject: [Paddlewise] accident scenerio
> > 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
> > rivers,  and his friends paddled the same boats through the Grand
Canyon,
> > (8,000 to 40,000+ cubic feet/ second).
>
> ...
>
> > 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?
>
> Some years ago, Roger Schumann wrote an interesting article for Sea
Kayaker
> about taking full-length sea kayaks down the Grand Canyon. Ravens, I think
> they were.
>
> I think this is the reference:
>
> Roger Schumann, "A Grand Idea: Sea Kayaking the Colorado River",
> _Sea_Kayaker_, August 1995, page 50.
>
>
> It sure sounded like a real success.  Roger, are you reading this?

Yep, I'm hear, better late than never, I guess.

I suppose the short answer about taking "sea touring kayaks" down rivers has
to do with boat size relative to river size. A big boat (Eddyline Raven, 17
feet by 24") seemed to work fantastic on a big river (the Colorado flowing
between 8 and 10,000 cfs).

The long answer, which I won't go into here, has to do with the skills of
the paddler. I suppose a highly skilled paddler could navigate a Yukon
safely down a Class III flowing at only 800 cfs, but I wouldn't recommend it
for most boaters and probably wouldn't want to try it myself.

Other successes: I do have two friends who took Mariner Coasters (14 feet by
24", fiberglass sea touring "playboats"-- are you there Matt?) down a Class
I-II stretch of the San Juan River in Utah that has a couple of fairly
straightforward Class III drops. I'm not sure what the flow was, but they
did say that it was "scrapey" in places on their week-long trip. The
advantage over a WW boat is that they could carry camping gear more easily.
The advantage over a raft should be obvious to anyone who has tried to
paddle a rubber barge on flat water stretches.

The long and short of it, I suppose, is that using touring kayaks in ww can
be either stupendous or stupid, depending on the size of the kayak, the flow
and character of the river, and the paddling skills of the paddler.

Roger Schumann
ESKAPE Sea Kayaking
co-author Guide to Sea Kayaking Central and Northern California

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