This was a fun issue of Rapid Mag to put together, although it was not without much contemplating and head scratching. We’ve been thinking lately that we might be editorially missing the boat, so to speak. We wondered why we were running four aerial how-to articles teaching moves done only by kayaking’s elite. What are we doing for the average weekend paddler?
Thinking about it a little longer we realized if we were in this situation five or ten years ago we’d be wondering if we should be running articles about spinning and cartwheeling or enders and side surfing. At the time, these were moves done only by the pros but are now well within the realm of first year paddlers.
Just about the time we had firmed-up our editorial schedule and were feeling pretty good about our intentions of progressing the sport, we received a letter to the editor. Ralf Meyer of Rockland, Ontario wrote: “Rapid is growing up with the sport, moving its coverage, opinions and features up towards an elite level at roughly the same pace as paddling expertise would for a paddler who was a novice when you were in your infancy as a fledgling magazine… The spirit of paddling is lost as expertise and proficiency increase and technique replaces nature.”
RIVER RUNNING BOATS ARE THE FUTURE
I don’t think aerial kayaking is any less spiritual than tandem canoeing a class III wilderness river; but Ralf’s letter did remind us that paddling can be many different things to different people.As boats become even more specialized, paddlers will realize what boat designers have been battling with for the past few years—it is damn near impossible to combine a river running boat with a modern day freestyle machine. So why bother? Because we don’t have the history of other sports such as windsurfing and skiing, we as paddlers are just coming to terms with the concept and investment of owning at least two boats to do it all.
After putting together our “Rapid Insider” boat reviews for the fall issue we should be equally pleased with Liquidlogic for pushing the freestyle envelope with their Skip and Pop as with Wave Sport and Dagger. The Super EZ and GT are designs for the huge number of freeboaters—paddlers like Ralf for whom the spirit lies in the river, not in the air.
Despite the lack of industry hype, river running boats are the future. They are boats people can paddle; they are the boats that are growing paddling and making it accessible. As the line between river runner and full-on play-boat widens, your river runner may have to share garage space with your new aerial spud boat.We suspect soon even intermediates will be hucking huge aerial moves, just like we learned to pirouette.
This article first appeared in the Fall 2002 issue of Rapid Magazine.
