The Paddler Autumn/Fall issue 2017

ThePADDLER 150
Photo: Pat Keller
Ask a paddler why they’re on a class 3 run in a
creek boat, and they’ll tell you about all the cool
moves on the river to make, fast eddies to zoom
through, slots to squeeze between, mini boofs to
spin off and some on-the-fly waves to hit. And
they’re absolutely right.
It’s just the wrong boat for the job.
So recently we’ve seen the manufacturers start
to come out with progressively longer and
longer river playful boats. While some of these
are still well under eight-foot, they are a good bit
longer than a freestyle boat, and they do open
up some more river possibilities.
Glide and carrying speed
Most creek boats nowadays are in the nine-foot
range (270cm) and there is a good reason why
they’re so fun to paddle. Somewhere around
eight and a half to nine-foot, boats get back
their glide and carrying speed, and this takes
another giant leap in speed and glide as you
approach ten-foot. Ironically, an eight-foot boat
paddles more like a longer six-foot boat than a
shorter ten-foot boat.
While there are some decent sub eight-foot
new style river play boats, for the purposes of
this article, I’m going to focus more on the
longer boats that truly do bring back a sense of
being able to use the whole river, and exploit all
its features.
Not everyone is looking for the same thing
either, and this is natural. The current main focus
is on ‘creekish’ style boats with squished tails.
Given the predominance, especially in Europe, of
alpine style rivers, it’s only natural that a
rockered buoyant bow is desirable, while the
squished tail opens up some of the possibilities
of tail squirts, rock splats and more dynamic
wave surfing than your average creeker.
Some have displacement hulls, like the popular
Braap, which keeps focused mainly on running
hard creeks with some ‘play’ thrown in, while
others are full planning hulls like the Gonzo, and
are focused more as ‘all river’ playboats, with
some ‘creek' thrown in.
Between these two are a slew of varying
interpretations with degrees of squirtability, bow
volume, and semi-planing hulls. It’s all about
where you live and paddle as to which is going
to be the most fun.
Another alternative
But there is another alternative too. One which,
so far has been largely unexplored, except in the
resurgence of the popularity of old recovered
boats like the Dagger RPM, and Savage Scorpion
for example. Both really long (by today’s
standards), and with more balanced nose and tail
volumes than the new Braaps and Gonzos, these
boats really allow you go back to a time where
you’d explore every ripple, seam, splatable rock,
and surfable hole or wave you could find.
But the displacement hull on these older boats
effectively excludes the last 20 years of design and
paddling progression. There is no reason why you
have to give up all the cool wave surfing moves
we’ve mastered, just to have some speed and to
explore your favourite rivers all over again.
For my own personal paddling enjoyment, I’ve
addressed this with a new design, the 303, and
I’m sure others will be right behind me with a
number of variations on the theme. I was looking
for the same ‘back to basics’ river exploration as
many, but I had no interest in making my creek
boat, no matter how great it is at creeking, my
daily paddler. Even the Gonzo, as remarkable as
it is, wasn’t what I wanted.
The joy that the 303 has brought back to
paddling for me was one that I’d lost in the early
2000s, when I effectively stopped kayaking and
went surfing full time (making it as far as the SUP
surfing world cup). I was not alone, as paddlers
abandoned their boats for kiteboards, mountain
bikes and so on will attest – paddling got
uninteresting (a bizarre concept when you
consider what the young paddlers are doing
today in freestyle boats on big waves).