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Boat Review: Riot’s Turbo

Photo: Rapid Staff
Boat Review: Riot's Turbo

A fast and aggressive play machine ready for tearing apart waves and throwing down in holes. The best all-around playboat Riot has ever produced!

Outfitting

The cockpit of the Turbo is tricked out with Riot’s latest outfitting gizmos for showroom adjustability and on-river tweaking. Riot may have gone too far with buckles, bolts and screws. Most felt they still used the cockpit rather than the ratcheting soft Impulse thigh braces. The Reflex hip pads are something you’d set once and leave alone. The movable seat is great but the ratcheting Force backband, broke in the cold water. The adjustable ratcheting foot braces are the bomb for downriver comfort.

River running

Running downriver, the Turbo is like no other Riot playboat. The bow and stern are close in volume and length and Riot’s made an honest attempt at offering more rocker while still maintaining a long waterline— you’ll love the hull speed for catching waves on the fly. Have a look at Riot’s weight range chart—the Turbo 52 might be your better river runner.

River play

The hull is what we’ve come to expect from Riot, very loose and hard edges. Clean 540 spins are the norm for this machine. Narrow-feeling and fast, it’s very easy to place on edge and carve like mad. The Turbo isn’t a “butt” bouncer; getting air is achieved through speed and quick edge transition to generate the lift—and at 6.5 feet it makes for impressive aerial moves. Looking at it on shore you can almost predict its hole performance—slicey, balanced and stable. The best Riot cartwheel boat to date.

Riot Turbo 47 / 52 specs

  • Length: 6’8” / 6’9”
  • Width: 24” / 26”
  • Volume: 47 US gal / 52 US gal
  • Weight: 33 lbs / 34 lbs
  • Cockpit: 31.5 x 17.5” / 30.5 x 17.5”
  • Weight range: 90-170 lbs / 150-220 lbs
  • MSRP: $1,099 USD / $1,499 CAD

rapidv6i3cover.jpgThis article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Rapid Magazine. For more great boat reviews, subscribe to Rapid’s print and digital editions here.

Boat Review: Necky’s Mission

Photo: Rapid Staff
Boat Review: Necky's Mission

Company line: A super fun, river-running playboat with volume for all-day comfort and predictable handling. Winner of the coveted “Gear of the Year 2004” award from Outside magazine.

Outfitting: Necky’s new Recoil system with aluminum backbone provides rigidity to the hull and a mounting point for the seat assembly. The flat seat needs building up under the ham- strings. The self-adhesive foam hip pads didn’t stick, and there’s no water bottle holder. The low-profile aluminum thigh hooks and backband ratchet system are simple and effective. Lots of vertical foot room for your river shoes to press against the pre-shaped cut-it-to-fit foam chunks.

River: River running in the Mission is stable and gentle, rolling smoothly from edge to edge. The incredible amount of rocker eliminates any pearling on ferries and lifts you over reactionary waves. There hasn’t been a boat that backpaddles this easily since the RPM. The Mission brings back home controlled eddyline stern squirts along with crazy stern enders when punching holes and boofing.

Play: Necky bills the Mission a river runner, but it is as much a weekender’s playboat—the return of the long-boat revolution! The super-big rocker keeps the ends clear of upstream green water and there’s no outrageous volume around the knees. Super-fun rails backsurfing. Surfs way faster than small boats. Longer ends grab more water in spins and cartwheels, letting the river do more work and you less “gooning” the boat around. Hole play is refreshingly slow and controlled. Outside might be right. 

Specs: length 7’2” | width 25.5” | volume 57gal | weight 34lb | cockpit 31×16” | price $1399cdn/$999us 

rapidv6i3cover.jpgThis article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Rapid Magazine. For more great boat reviews, subscribe to Rapid’s print and digital editions here.

Boat Review: Wave Sport’s Zero Gravity

Photo: Rapid Staff
Boat Review: Wave Sport's Zero Gravity

Company line: Between river running and high-performance play, the ZG is the best of both worlds all combined in a beautifully designed aesthetic package.

First feel: All padders agreed the new Zero Gravity (Zee Gee) feels like a pre-Transformer Wave Sport boat— fast, predictable balanced and smooth. Wave Sport incorporated low rocker to increase speed and carving. Even though the bow rides suspiciously close to the surface it didn’t raise a complaint from even our most newbie test pilot. The clean convex deck sheds any pearling before the bow is pinned and your momentum stalled—ferry on, Wayne; surf on, Garth. The ZG still feels and moves around the river like a real boat, it jumps up on plane quickly on a ferry and glides deep into eddies. Still learning to flatwater stall and cartwheel? The ZG is your boat. Or pick up an Ace, just don’t try to spin it.

Pro-spective: Without question the Zero Gravity is one of the fastest boats in the 2004 lineup and accelerated on edge like a champ. Not only can you launch huge aerial moves, you have the hull speed to maintain the surf when you land them—one of the biggest gripes with the T series. The boat is clean with soft lines and a loose hull, “like a blank skateboard deck with no gimmicks.” Flat spins easily work themselves into smooth and stable vertical ends. Loops? Sure, but don’t look for the pop you’d expect from more bulbous cockpits.

Pro: A favourite of freestyle pros and intermediate river paddlers.

Con: Narrow knee position, and no drain plug. Six inches extra boat to swing through rotational aerial moves. 

Specs

length 6’4”/6’6”
width 24.5”/25”
volume 48gal/54gal
weight 31lbs/32lbs
paddler weight range 100-180lbs/140-220lbs
price $1399cdn/$999us 

rapidv6i3cover.jpgThis article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Rapid magazine. For more great boat reviews, subscribe to Rapid’s print and digital editions here.

Touring Kayak Review: Aquafusion Quest

Person paddling yellow sea kayak on a river

The Quest is built by the three-year-old touring kayak division of an Ontario canoe company, Nova Craft, so we thought ours might feel at home in some classic canoe territory. We joined our sister publication, Rapid magazine, on a whitewater kayak test day for an early spring high-water run through Lower Madawaska Provincial Park, not far downstream of where the Madawaska River flows past our offices.

Normally home to Royalex whitewater canoes and stubby freestyle kayaks, the Mad doesn’t see many touring kayaks, but why not? Fourteen and 15-foot touring kayaks overlaps whitewater slalom boats in length, and a few companies sell kayaks of this length as “hybrids” for use on everything from oceans and large lakes to pokey streams and river whitewater up to Class III and IV.

Aquafusion Quest Specs
Length: 14′ 8″
Width: 23.5″
Depth: 11.5″
Cockpit: 31″ x 16.5″
Weight: 57 lbs
MSRP: $1,099 CDN base; $1,299 CDN GT

Not that many among you paddlers of recreational touring kayaks are planning to take your boat downriver in April, but since we wanted to test Aquafusion’s claim that the Quest is “sleek and fast yet highly manoeuvrable and carves turns on the lean effortlessly,” putting it through the whitewater paces seemed like a sure way to find out.

The Lower Mad consists of a series of about a dozen Class II to IV rapids with some long stretches of flatwater, dealing us everything from glassy calm to chop, rock gardens and steep, breaking surf.

Paddlers in the Quest had more fun than the river kayakers. The Quest catches waves and surfs beautifully, dials carving turns with a quick roll of the hips, Eskimo rolls capably despite rudimentary cockpit outfitting and blasts across eddylines with more speed than anything else on the river.

The multi-chine hull sits almost more comfortably in a tilt than it does flat, so beginners may find it a bit wobbly and skittish unloaded in big water. Being easy to tilt, the Quest is a great boat for the keen beginner to learn edging and bracing techniques.

With the hull-design characteristics of a high-end kayak built into a recreationally priced boat, you sacrifice some higher-end comforts like dependably water-tight hatches, a foot-controlled rudder and stock-outfitted thigh and hip braces—but receive performance that lives up to its billing, without the inaccessible bill. A great learning boat suitable for shorter trips.

[ Paddling Buyer’s Guide: View all touring kayaks ]

Cockpit and rear deck (top)

For a boat that you’ll be tilting a lot, customizing the interior is a must. The seat comes with a cushy pad underneath and an adjustable North Water backband. The aluminum seat stays are awkwardly placed and require some adjustment and extra padding. The Quest also requires knee/thigh pads—they’d be easy to glue to the flat under-deck.

Top image: cockpit; middle image: hull; bottom image: rear hatch

Classic multi-chine (middle)

The multi-chined hull is a proven performance design that’s remarkably similar to some others. If you’ve seen a 14-foot Necky Looksha, you’ve essentially seen the hull on the Quest. In a strong wind, the Quest is remarkably well balanced, tracking well with no strong tendency to weathercock, making the optional aluminum skeg, well, optional! A nylon cord on a cleat drops the skeg, which protrudes somewhat alarmingly from the stern of the Quest when not in use—don’t forget your red flag when cartopping!

Love handles (bottom)

Our BCU teachers would rap our knuckles, but we couldn’t help loving the padded handles bolted onto the front and rear decks of the Quest: top marks for carrying comfort. For an additional $200 CDN, the GT package comes with the skeg, front bulkhead and storage hatch shown here—useful if you’re planning to do any tripping, but the hatch opening is small and not 100-percent waterproof. Consider stuffing a drybag or flotation into the bow of the standard model. The deck is flat and streamlined, Greenland-style, and surfs and sheds water remarkably well given its knife-like profile.

This article originally appeared in Adventure Kayak‘s Summer 2004 issue. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions here, or browse the archives here.

Paddling’s Black Holes

Photo: Ryan Creary

Whirlpools have always held a strange fascination as black-hole vortices into which things disappear and don’t return. Rumors of thirty-metre fishing boats disappearing in seconds, counter-rotation whirlpools in the southern hemisphere, and the elusive “floater” that never flushes down, have all been dispelled as local folklore and myth. Or have they? 

To river-people, whirlpools have always had a mystic aura surrounding them. However, it is possible to understand these behemoths and the forces that influence them. Whirlpools are, believe it or not, consistent river features. Playing in whirlpools adds a new dimension to river running, building your understanding and making you feel more comfortable when acciden- tally dropping into them. Playing in whirlpools increases bracing and rolling abilities, and sometimes, in a really big one, increases your lung capacity.

WHIRLPOOLS: MORE THAN YOU WANTED TO KNOW

Formation

Whirlpools generally occur along strong eddylines where two strong, opposite flowing currents collide. When the two currents converge, the centrifugal force (force away from the centre of the circle) creates a low-pressure area in the centre of the circle. Water wants to move from high-pressure areas to low pressure areas and this is what creates the centripetal force (force towards the centre of the circle) in the whirlpool establishing the spin-momentum of the water. Gravity affects the spin-momentum creating the downwards flowing tendency of the vortex, and accentuating the spin.

Progression

Once a whirlpool forms, its longevity depends on its spin-momentum and interaction of the two opposing currents. Very strong opposing currents form a whirlpool which spins extremely fast, and due to the increased centrifugal and centripetal forces, a very tight, deep whirlpool is the result. Slow moving, opposing currents form a very shallow, wide whirlpool without much downwards-sucking motion.

Whirlpools move downstream along the eddy line. The reason is, downstream flowing current always moves faster than the upstream flowing back eddy. The whirlpool progresses downstream along the eddyline because of the difference in force between the two currents acting on the vortex.

Dissipation

Whirlpool dissipation is a result of a loss of spin-momentum and the two opposing currents no longer being in opposition. The friction of the water on itself causes the spinning forces to stop. Dissipation of the whirlpool occurs as whirlpools move laterally away from the eddyline into the downstream or eddy current, or as they move to the downstream end of the eddy where the eddy current is not strong. 

PADDLING INTO THE VORTEX 

The Slingshot Technique

The first thing to know about kayaking around whirlpools is that a whirlpool on river left will always spin counter-clockwise and a river-right whirlpool will always spin in a clockwise direction—the bottom of the whirpool is flowing into the eddy. This knowledge about whirlpool spin direction, and knowing that whirlpools form and move downstream, enables you to actually use whirlpools to accelerate into, and out of, eddies.

To enter a strong eddy with a large boil-line, paddling into the eddy just downstream of the center of the vortex allows you to use the laterally flowing water as a slingshot to increase speed into an eddy. Paddling out of an eddy and into the current, being just upstream of the whirlpool vortex will increase lateral momentum into the main current. This technique enables you to cross eddylines, which would otherwise be very difficult to cross due to large boils.

Whirlpool Pirouettes

Whirlpool pirouettes are an extremely fun and unique kayaking experience. Pirouettes are very easy to initiate and maintain because of the sucking action of whirlpools. To initiate, simply expose your bow or stern to the centre of the vortex. Using cross-bow pirouette strokes or stern squirt strokes get the boat vertical and spinning. Being able to bow stall or continue your squirt rotation is beneficial, though not necessary.

Mystery Moves

Mystery moves, or disappearing underwater while still in the boat, are easy with whirlpools. To maximize downtime keep the kayak sitting flat, which increases the amount of surface area the river can use to pull the boat under. Important note: once under water, spinning the boat using the paddle, and sitting upright, help you to return to the surface upright.

Getting Worked

Flipping in whirlpools is part of the freestyle experience. Waiting upside down to be released by the whirlpool is not the best option. Although this may work, provided the whirlpool dissipates quickly.

When upside down in the bottom of the vortex, the water around the edges of the whirlpool is spinning faster than the upside down kayaker. Reaching to the surface and changing the blade angle to catch faster-flowing water, the current in the vortex assists your roll by increasing the water-pressure on the paddle blade.

Oh Yeah, Safety for the Black Hole

There are two things necessary before playing in whirlpools to ensure the whirlpools will be a fun experience. The first is to choose a good location. Big whirlpools are fun, provided they form quickly and dissipate quickly. Tight, deep whirlpools will maximize downtime, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how long the water continues to revolve.

Secondly, remember that a whirlpool is startlingly similar to a black hole—an object whose gravity is so strong that the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light. Some whirlpools can suck a paddler and kayak under for 15 seconds. Large whirlpools like this are incredibly dangerous to paddlers out of their boat. Prepare mentally to stay in your boat and have a good spray deck. Swimming is not an option. 

Screen_Shot_2016-04-22_at_3.53.38_PM.pngThis article first appeared in the Fall 2004 issue of Rapid Magazine.

 

Skills: A Bag Full of Tricks

Photo: Scott MacGregor

Front surfing your canoe on a large wave feels as close to flying as you’re going to get with a paddle in your hands. Controlling your surf on small waves may seem as simple as ferrying your boat. However, on large waves you need a full bag of tricks to maintain your surf for extended periods of time. To really fly on a wave you must carefully control your boat speed, your position between crest and trough, and be able to delicately turn left and right without blowing off the wave. Sometimes, even getting on the wave can be a huge challenge! Consider the following essentials for surfing bigger waves. 

THE BOAT

Having the right canoe for the task will be a significant asset. Lengthy boats tend to dive low into the wave trough becoming difficult to control. Once the bows of these canoes plow into the wave upstream of your surf wave it is often ‘game over’. Shorter canoes are much easier to control and fit better on almost any surf wave.

Flatter hulls respond better to rudder strokes used for steering on surf waves. Smaller boats are also much easier to trim front to back on steep waves which helps you control your speed.

THE WAVE

The best surf waves are ones that have a wave face that is equal to, or longer than the length of your canoe. This provides the surface area nec- essary to support the whole boat. A wider and longer wave face gives you room to manoeuvre on the wave—both side to side and up and down. Shorter waves can be surfed provided that they are not too steep. Side to side ‘shredding’ will help prevent the bow from getting stuck in the water upstream of the surf wave.

THE TECHNIQUE

Once on the wave, keep your canoe moving. Ferrying back and forth helps you to stay in control of your speed and your positioning between the wave crest and trough. Gentle side-to-side movement keeps your bow clear of the upstream water while allowing you to stay low, near the trough on the wave. Aggressive left to right play surfs you closer to the crest and helps maintain a free and dry bow on steep waves. Keep your tilts to an absolute minimum. Even without boat tilt, once you turn your canoe, the contour of the water beneath your hull will cause a carve on your downstream edge—very cool!

GETTING ON THE WAVE – WITHOUT STRUGGLING

  • Approach from the eddy pool adjacent to the surf wave.
  • Enter by paddling into the trough that feeds the surf wave.
  • Your speed should match the current so you nei- ther climb upstream past the wave, nor drift down- stream away from the wave.

ACCELERATING – TO HELP STAY ON THE WAVE

  • When near the wave crest, straighten your boat and point the bow down to the trough.
  • Lean forward slightly and use a rudder for directional control.
  • Lower your T-grip hand and place your paddle shaft against the gunwhale.

SLOWING DOWN – TO KEEP THE BOW DRY

  • If you’re heading low into the trough straighten your canoe.
  • Slow the boat by leaning back. This pushes the stern deeper into the wave crest and decreases downward trim of the hull.
  • Push your blade forward using the non-power face as if to do a reverse stroke.

SHREDDING – CONTROL SIDE TO SIDE MOVEMENT

  • Position your canoe between the crest and trough
  • Lift your bow so that it is free to turn.
  • Use a rudder and push or pull the T-grip to turn left or right, much like a stern pry or draw 

Andrew Westwood – instructor at Madawaska Kanu Centre, Esquif team member, Rapid columnist. 

Screen_Shot_2016-04-22_at_3.53.38_PM.pngThis article first appeared in the Fall 2004 issue of Rapid Magazine.

 

Ashuapmushuan River Daze

One evening in early June, I had just finished shooting some photos with Dale Monkman and we chatted about where the next place he and the “Island Boys” were heading to paddle.

“Lac St-Jean, Quebec,” he said. “Tomorrow.” They would paddle and practice for a few days in the small town of St-Félicien prior to the town’s annual whitewater rodeo.

Dale and a few others had gone to paddle the Ashuapmushuan River in Quebec’s Saguenay–Lac St-Jean region for two years previous and it had become something of a tradition, returning each year with more people to scout more rivers and find more of the undiscovered, un-run gems in Quebec’s whitewater Nirvana. Like most of the crew, I was out of a job, so I decided to tag along. Dale assured me the water is still high in early June and I’d get some sick shots.

Dale and I hooked up with Laura Nash, Nick Miller, and Aussie Anthony Yap the next morning just east of Ottawa for the daylong drive. En route we joined fellow Canadians Justin Thompson, Dave Tiedje, Mitch Braun, Patrick Camblin—plus Americans Marlow Long and Brooks Baldwin who were planning to do some shooting for Young Guns Productions’ next video offering. Some were veterans of the area, others were following Dale’s version of the gospel of St-Jean—Laura Nash included, who said she’d been hearing Dale rant all spring about the “Aswapmuswam” River. 

This is a tight group of boaters at the forefront of Canadian freestyle of which the central core—Dale, Patrick, Dave, and Nick—are some of the original “Island Boys” of the Ottawa River. They have paddled and competed together for several years on the international stage, and their cohesiveness is obvious as they share and swap gear, food and boats as only a tightly knit bunch of paddle gypsies could.

Brooks managed to travel the whole way and back without remembering to pack shoes, thus spending the whole time walk- ing gingerly barefoot. Somehow he still managed to get into restaurants—perhaps an advantage of not understanding French.

The seven-hour drive from Ottawa to St- Félicien is a picturesque adventure along some of Quebec’s “pedal to the metal” superhighways leading progressively to twisty-turny logging truck–travelled backroads (where it is still “pedal to the metal”). The scenery is fantastic views of lakes, hills and cliffs, and there are many nice French Canadian towns along the way.

In total, 45 rivers empty into Lac St- Jean—a basin smaller than the city of Toronto. And all are accessible within about 100 kilometres’ drive in either direction along an encircling network of roads. And three large and powerful northern Quebec rivers—the Ashuapmushuan, the Mistassini and the Mistassibi—pour the combined spring runoff of a decent-sized European country into the lake’s northwest corner near the small town of St-Félicien.

These rivers drop down to the lake level over well-polished outcrops and giant bread-loaf boulders of Canadian Shield granite, bringing paddlers’ dreams to life along the way. Amazing playboating waves and holes, big technical and pushy water, waterfalls, steep chutes, and big-water runs compare with classics like the Ottawa or the Slave.

The guys described the Ashuapmushuan (ass-whupin’, you swam) as like an Ottawa River without the crowds—starting off like the class IV Garvin’s Chute “on steroids” followed by a high-water Coliseum—and surrounded by other rivers and more potential first descents than anyone could paddle in a lifetime. Patrick Camblin noted,

“The paddling in the Lac St-Jean region is second to none…. You could run a new river or section of river each day for a week and not have to travel more than an hour to find it!”

The Saguenay–Lac St-Jean region is also the de facto blueberry capital of Canada, with many commercial farms near the lake. The local communities have combined forces to organize a 250-kilometre cycling route around the lake dubbed the “Blueberry Route.” Women in the region outnumber men three-to-one, though these ladies may be of a certain age—Dave Tiedje reported finding “a fantastic over-40s bar filled with too many cougars (if there can ever be too many of such a thing).” In other words, there’d be no shortage of things to keep you busy if you weren’t busy paddling.

We spent most of our days cruising up and down the Ashuapmushuan where it flows past the town of St-Félicien. We stayed at a free public campsite, conveniently right beside the rapids at the Chutes à Michel, a small river-wide rapid that features a ledge drop and a manmade fish ladder (three quar- ters of Lac St-Jean’s cherished landlocked salmon spawn up this river).

Chutes à Michel is the put-in for the short playboating run of the lower Ashuapmushuan. Not far downstream is a pair of huge hole fea- tures below a railroad bridge which provides a great overhead viewpoint for scouting and photos. The run finishes off at the Vague Arcand, an impressive breaking wave. Vague Arcand is the site of St-Félicien’s rodeo and our group’s “king of the wave” wars—an elbow-to-elbow surfing tradition imported from hanging out on the Ottawa.

We found a plethora of other paddling options only a short drive away, including the spectacular rapids and slides at the massive Chute à l’Ours, not far upstream on the Ashuapmushuan.

Down Highway 169 from St-Félicien, near Roberval, we spotted a waterfall drop on the Ouiatchouaniche River right beside the road. It was an easy line down a 15-foot slide that shoots into a 10-foot waterfall to a calm pool. Everyone ran multiple laps with the cameras rolling. Dave and Justin both ran a different line at the same time and others threw hero moves on the drop.

Out of town to the northeast are big-water runs on the Mistassini and Mistassibi where the two large rivers flow side by side through the twin towns of Dolbeau and Mistassini.

We spent several days playing around, longboarding in the parking lots in town to get away from the mosquitoes (many rivers = many bugs), stoking blazing campfires at the campground and prying secrets of the un-run from the minds of the few local paddlers we could find—most notably Gino Thibeault, organizer of the St-Félicien rodeo.

A teacher in Jonquiere, Gino spends his summers guiding punters down local rivers in Topo-Duos and living in a tiny cabin beside the Ashuapmushuan. He has probably scoped the area’s whitewater more than anybody. After consulting some topo maps, Gino and Dale teamed up for a run of the Petite Chute à l’Ours further up the Ashuapmushuan—a likely first descent.

Off-river days were spent driving around in a state of general awe at the size and gradient of the region’s other rivers and eye- balling ballsy imaginary lines through rapids that were bigger than many of us had ever seen.

“Perfectly steep, green waves taunted us from between killer holes and pourovers,” mused Laura. “It was like being in the land of the giants.”

Dale and the boys will probably come back again next year for more relaxing days on the Ashuapmushuan and more exploratory runs of the surrounding rivers. In time, more and more paddlers will probably slap on the DEET and make the pilgrimage to the land of blueberries and first descents. Maybe Lac St-Jean will be discovered and its single women will be wed, but I doubt its rivers will ever be crowded. 

Ottawa-based photographer Rob Faubert is a regular Rapid contributor.  

Screen_Shot_2016-04-21_at_11.48.50_AM.pngThis article first appeared in the Early Summer 2004 issue of Rapid Magazine.

 

Liquidlogics’ Lil’ Joe Kayak: Whitewater Kayak Review

Kayaker paddling Liquidlogics' Lil' Joe kayak down whitewater
Liquidlogics' Lil' Joe whitewater kayak is going to accommodate your surfing pals and your river running pals so you never have to choose. | Photo: Scott MacGregor

Liquidlogic launched onto the paddling scene with the cart before the horse. It hit the freestyle and creek markets hard with the Sessions, the Skip and Pop, followed by last year’s Space Cadet and its stubby brothers, and the creekers, Gus and Huck.

Kayaker paddling Liquidlogics' Lil' Joe kayak down whitewater
Liquidlogics’ Lil’ Joe whitewater kayak is going to accommodate your surfing pals and your river running pals so you never have to choose. | Photo: Scott MacGregor
Specs (Lil’ Joe / Hoss)
Length: 7 ft 7 in / 7 ft 10 in
Width: 25 in / 26 in
Volume: 60 gal / 70 gal
Weight: 34 lbs / 36 lbs
MSRP: $1275 CAD, $995 USD
liquidlogickayaks.com

Whether it was a marketing strategy or the guys just building the boats they wanted (I suspect the latter), Liquidlogic succeeded in staking claim to real estate in a sparse whitewater frontier without the horse or better yet without the cash cow—a river running all-rounder that lasts a few seasons and leads in sales. Allow me to introduce a couple of thoroughbreds, Hoss and Lil’ Joe.

Liquidlogic’s comfortable kayak seats and accessories

Outfitting is the first thing anyone notices on boat test days and its what testers are bitching, or in this case raving, about on the ride home. Liquidlogic has nailed down a simple but highly effective system. The IR back-band is stiff, stays put vertically and is comfortable even when cranked super tight. The seat and hip pads were magically set in the right place for everyone who paddled it. The ergonomics are superb.

[ Read more: How To Choose The Best Kayak For You ]

We like the simple things like pillar retention ridges, molded in instead of using screws and more plastic. The five Black Diamond safety bars are more hand-friendly than the previous LL bars. Two are positioned on the back deck for swimmer rescue and the Bucket Hand Hold on the bow deck is designed for easy grip during T-rescues. Overall, there is an industrial fugliness (functional ugliness) to the boats, but only until you get them on the water.

I asked Liquidlogic’s marketing man, Woody Callaway, what they had in mind with the Lil’ Joe and Hoss: “We took the hull of our play boats, which surf waves like mad, and the volume of our creek boats, and married them together. The Hoss and Lil’ Joe are our [modern] version of the RPM.”

Liquidlogics’ Lil’ Joe is a playboater’s river running whitewater kayak

The Lil’ Joe is without a doubt a playboater’s river runner. Its a full-on planing hull with sharp rocker break that paddles like your favorite “spud” boat. You’ll notice the familiar feeling of planing up quickly on a ferry, and settling down just as quickly once into an eddy—great for sticking eddies, but you’ll have to work to cruise old-school S-turns.

[ Paddling Buyer’s Guide: View all our kayaks used for river running ]

Like on a playboat, you can activate different parts of the hull. Lean forward and the boat stays flat, holds a line and carves predictably into eddies; lean back and the nose rides over waves, raised eddy lines and reactionaries. Leaning back also allows/causes the boat to carve less and spin more. Surprisingly, given the volume, you can still engage the stern and pivot-turn, especially off the top of waves.

The Lil’ Joe we paddled is a nice surfing kayak. You can engage the playboat hull for either aggressively carving off the front edge or pulling the bow around, carving off the stern. Side surfing and spinning are as good as it gets in a longer boat—smooth so long as you keep flat and don’t let your ends trip you up.

[ Read more: 14 Tips For Buying a Whitewater Kayak ]

At the roundup, here’s what our testers said about who should buy Liquidlogic’s Lil’ Joe and Hoss: Good choice for playboaters running more challenging lines… I’d say 160 pounds is about the max for the Lil’ Joe for anything steep… It fits between a proper creek boat and a proper playboat… Perfect beginner to intermediate boats that could be used on advanced rivers… Great instructional boats for both instructors and students… The Lil’ Joe is a river running boat that feels a lot like my playboat!

Liquidlogics’ Lil’ Joe whitewater kayak is going to accommodate your surfing pals and your river running pals so you never have to choose. Feature Photo: Scott MacGregor

Pyranha’s H:3 River Running Kayak: Review

kayaker paddling down a rapid in Pyranha's H:3 river running kayak
Run the river until the river runs dry. | Photo: Scott MacGregor

In 2003 Pyranha updated and replaced its H:2 river runner with the new H:3. If you know Pyranha’s I:3 series—the boat formerly known as Ina Zone (arguably a river runner itself)—and their Micro creek boat, you would rightly guess the H:3 fills the pushy class IV–V water in between.

Specs (H:3 235 / H:3 245 / H:3 255)
Length: 7ft 8in / 8ft / 8ft 4in
Width: 25in / 25in / 26in
Volume: 59.4gal / 67.1gal / 80gal
Weight: 41.1 lbs / 42.7 lbs / 46.2 lbs
MSRP: $1645 CAD, $1095 USD
pyranha.com

The H:3’s outfitting is a combination of proven technology, innovation, and safety. The bulkhead-on-a-rail includes two sets of rotomoulded bulkhead pods so that different sizes of paddlers are ensured the safety of a full-plate footrest.

Pyranha’s H:3 has a nice blend of hand-friendly rubber grab loops and bombproof clip-in points. Co-designed and manufactured by the climbing company DMM, the paddler-accessible rescue points immediately in front of the cockpit and both sides behind the cockpit are mounted over-generous carabiner-specific recesses.

[ Read more: Buy a Kayak: How To Advice Part I ]

Kudos to Pyranha for providing a rigid bow pillar with “step out” safety ladder for hands-free egress from a stuck boat. A factory bow airbag is another industry first and a nice touch, as is the innovative space for a Pelican box between the seat and rear pillar. Clever.

Pyranha has gone a bit too far with their Hooker thigh grips. The sliding/rotating/pivoting thigh hooks are overkill and unnecessarily finicky. Although you won’t move it once set, the Hooker system is an instructor’s day-one nightmare. Most paddlers are still prone to forgetting their skirt, top, and noseplugs, let alone the three separate tools required for outfitting adjustment.

The Pyranha H:3 stability inspires an aggressive tilt

On the water, the Pyranha H:3 flies downstream with a wonderful feeling of glide. Paddlers more used to pushing around slow playboats will find themselves unintentionally surfing small features when ferrying across the river—needing to open up their ferry angle to take advantage of the H:3’s speed.

[ Read more: Buy a Whitewater Kayak: 14 Expert Tips ]

Great secondary stability inspires the confidence to aggressively tilt and carve the H:3 in and out of eddies. It holds an edge well with enough stability to allow you to make long, cruising carves into deep, fat eddies. It doesn’t spin-turn flat as easily as a highly rockered, dedicated creek boat, or pivot-turn like a playboat, but it eats those boats alive on long ferries and river-wide moves.

Pyranha’s H:3 is a rock-steady river running kayak. The long-running length and consistent rocker profile mean there is no sudden break to deflect you off course. The stern carries enough volume and raised edges to keep it high and less susceptible to boils. It’s a “pick a line and nail it” type boat—and one of the best at punching holes.

[ Paddling Buyer’s Guide: View all river running kayaks ]

Want to take the Pyranha H:3 playing? The planing hull allows you to lay down a mean carve on a long wave and you can still mush it around flat if things are too steep. Realistically though, the H:3 plays about as much as you would on a river running trip.

This is a river running kayak with creek boat tendencies and a desire to travel. Technically minded paddlers will love it. So will those running big water with must-make moves and creekers paddling everything but the tightest and near vertical. But what really fired the imaginations of the test crew was the H:3’s speed, all-day comfort, and volume. It’ll become a classic overnighter.

Run the river until the river runs dry. Feature Photo: Scott MacGregor

Cross Over Your Fear

Photo: Jason Chow

Dear Rapid,

It was hot and deserted at the Gull River yesterday. I sat in the eddy across from the bridge and stared at the water bottle between my knees. The acrid bile of self-pity swamped me. If anyone had offered me a thousand bucks for my miserable Dagger Phantom, they would have had themselves a deal.

All the “intermediate” paddlers I know are afraid to exit an eddy with their paddle on their offside. As a result they, like me most days, only paddle half the river. We all gingerly exit with an onside pry that somewhat slows (and somewhat controls) the opening of angle. The offside exit is the hurdle that all open boaters face. A friend told me last night that an offside is 50- percent mental. I wept.

What if I’m just doing something wrong, what if there’s some secret that’s eluded me, some magic way of thinking to restore that fleeting sense of offside balance that visits and then leaves like some fickle angel. Will we all have to sell our boats and take up golf?

Yours on a pry, Phobic 

Dear Phobic,

The pry eddy turn is a lot of fun in a “what the hell” kind of way on a warm day. For a stronger stroke, try the cross-draw instead. It is more stable, makes it easier to control the angle of attack and maintain forward momentum, and I think it is easier to learn. It’s just better.

Here is a quick tip that might help. Rotate to your offside from your hips and not just your shoulders or upper back. Planting your paddle on the offside properly forces you to rotate your shoulders and upper back. Rotating your hips as the paddle crosses the bow will keep you balanced when you plant the blade. Lots of tilt will make it more comfortable to rotate and reach and will stabilize your turn.

I know that some people teach the cross-draw with the top hand back and blade forward, but I prefer (even for beginners) to plant the cross-draw with the shaft vertical. Your arms should be almost straight. Your shoulders and the paddle shaft should form an isosceles triangle. Plant the blade so it is perpendicular to the current. As the turn progresses, rotate the blade so it stays perpendicular to the current. A vertical paddle shaft is more stable, causes less risk of shoulder injury and is more powerful and quicker to transition to a cross-forward stroke at the end of your turn.

Mark Scriver—coauthor of Thrill of the Paddle and former OC1 freestyle world champion. 

Dear Phobic,

It’s amazing that we want to do offside peel-outs into rapids with names like Valley of Death and Widow Maker. Not exactly confidence-inspiring. So, for us that means finding some flatwater to practice accelerating from a standstill and then carving offside circles using cross-forward strokes and consistent leans. Do a range of tilts from almost flat to an extreme tilt.

Then, on a very easy stretch of river, back up in eddies so you can confidently accelerate across eddylines with short, powerful forward and cross- forward strokes and well-earned rock-solid leans. Don’t use a static cross-draw to do peel-outs; keep your

paddle moving with short, aggressive, well-timed cross-forward strokes. You’ll be much more stable while letting the current turn your boat for you. Have a look at Kent Ford’s Solo Playboating video and workbook.

Allyson Phillips and Roger Warnatsch—RCABC Instructors.

Dear Phobic,

While your friend is absolutely right that it’s largely a psych move, we as sentient beings can find physics and logic to combat our primal fear. Let’s assume you’re doing the stroke correctly.

As we know, placing the blade in the water, as well as momentum, provide us with stability. Consider the direction of the current and the eddyline while you’re sitting in an eddy. If you’re starting your momentum and your offside stroke by placing your paddle blade in the swirly, inconsistent water of the eddyline, chances are you will feel less stable, and it will be difficult to gain the stability of momentum if you are unable to generate it. Make sure that you start in the part of the eddy where the water is moving upriver—this willprovide a “meaty” spot to plant strokes and start your manoeuvre.

Beth Kennedy—ORCA Moving Water Instructor course director, three-time medalist at U.S. Open Canoe Slalom Nationals.

Phobic,

Recently, I raced a slalom course where the eddy was a moving eddy and the eddyline was very boily. The upstream gate was placed right on the eddyline. The only way for me to leave the eddy without touching the gate was to leave on my offside. Leaving on my offside was the last thing I wanted to do. During practice, every time I left on my onside, I would get bounced back into the eddy because with a pry I didn’t have enough angle and speed. During the race, I found the courage to power up and leave the eddy, all on my offside. Not only did the stroke feel incredibly powerful, I didn’t touch the gate. Just before crossing the eddyline, I dug my paddle in and pulled hard. At the end of the stroke, Ieaned back to keep the bow out of the faster current, kept the boat fairly flat and committed to it.

Vanessa Charron—Instructor, wilderness river paddler and two-time North American Whitewater Slalom Tandem Canoe co-Champion.

Dear Phobic,

As an intructor, I often see stability as the root problem canoeists have with their offside moves. Stability is based on the relationship between your boat and the water surface. But, it is you who controls canoe stability.

To master this skill you can play “Simon says” while paddling. Simon says, “Always freeze your legs prior to crossing an eddyline.” By locking your legs in the thigh straps, you can control the tilt of the canoe and prevent boat wobbles and flips during turns to your offside. This may sound easy enough, but remember while your legs are frozen your upper body has to do some funky offside strokes. It takes practice to get those legs working for you, but it will certainly help stabilize the canoe.

Phobic, you also have control over the stability of the water. If you are sitting in an eddy pool and wish to exit into the current, it’s your choice to enter stable or unstable water. Here is how it works. Beside the eddy pool there will be waves. These waves have crests and troughs. The most stable point to enter the current is at the wave trough. Here, the shape of the wave will cradle the canoe and actually surf you away from the eddy pool. Angle is import for this to work, but don’t worry, Phobic, it is easy to figure out. You won’t require much tilt and the resulting surf will help maintain your speed. Best of all, you will be on a stable part of the wave—a good place from which to initiate a turn and use your cross-strokes.

Andrew Westwood—instructor at Madawaska Kanu Centre, Esquif team member, Rapid OC technique columnist. 

Screen_Shot_2016-04-21_at_11.48.50_AM.pngThis article first appeared in the Early Summer 2004 issue of Rapid Magazine.

 

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