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By: Corran Addison
Photos: Soul Archives
Bio
Corran Addison is a regular contributor to the Paddler magazine and owns Soul Waterman
The demise of the river runner
“Believe me, my young friend; there is nothing–absolutely nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Kenneth Grahame
Cast your mind back a decade or more. We had playboats. We had river playboats. We had creek boats. And we had a class of boat known as a river runner. They were not focused on playing nor on creeking, but you could do a little of both with them.
And these boats were fantastic for beginners.
Most people getting into the sport of whitewater kayaking are unsure what part of it will attract them. The ability to dabble into a little of everything helps them understand the sensations and skills required for each element and a progression in that direction.
But it’s not just beginners. Many people get into whitewater kayaking that never progress beyond an intermediate level for many reasons. There is nothing wrong with this; it’s perfectly acceptable to go paddle from time to time, well within your comfort zone, just for being outside.
In recent years both these categories have been ignored. Creek boats are pawned off on both as the ‘perfect boat’ for their skills, but this makes a lot of assumptions, the primary one being that intermediates and beginners all want to learn to run harder and harder rivers and need a boat to facilitate this: a creek boat.
Teaching
I’ve been teaching kayaking for a long time, starting in the mid-1980s. With a few exceptions of people who get into the sport knowing they want to freestyle or charge creeks, most people coming in have no clue about the various options and styles and what they’ll like.
It also assumes that the best way to hone and improve skills is to run harder rivers progressively, and I categorically disagree. The greatest route to progression is the repetition of basic skills in a controlled and safe environment, and this is usually playful activity with your kayak.
Surfing small waves, making eddy moves, learning to spin in small holes, and playfully looking for neat and interesting routes through well-known rapids. This leads to progression.
Paddle into a small wave, surf it, feel how the boat is reacting, flip, roll, paddle through the wave train, eddy out. Repeat.
Stuck in a hole
And frankly, creek boats surf both waves and holes like a potato. They might be the easiest boat to learn to progress into more challenging whitewater, but they are the most difficult to learn to surf and play around in. They are comparatively hard to roll (high volume decks), and anyone that’s been stuck in a hole in a creek boat will tell you how much they suck in a hole – uncontrolled, bouncy, unpredictable and hole bait. A shorter, lower volume boat is much easier to control and get out of a hole than an elongated beach ball.
All that end volume tried to push the tail out of the water behind you, whether in a hole or a wave, getting you stuck sideways (holes) or constantly fighting the nose front surfing (waves). The high volume, high rocker ends are constantly knocked about river running or playing. And while these are fantastic features when running steep rivers with vertical drops, they are not well suited for the environment I have described above.
Whitewater learning process
But a decade or more ago, many kayak designs did precisely this. Some were more focused on playful river running (Deasil, Thunder, Mamba, Spice) and some more on river play (Booster, GT, Inazone, Pintail). Of course, we have learned a lot about design, and ergonomics, since those days of old, but the fundamental concepts of those boats were correct for the whitewater learning process. And they have disappeared.
Instead, we pawn off creek boats to beginners or suggest super unforgiving half slice or ICF playboats. With a few exceptions, none of those are ideal.
“No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he’s not the same man.” Wise words to heed from Heraclitus before assuming that the designs of old are genuinely the best option for modern times.
Let me now tell you a personal story
My wife is an intermediate paddler, and she has been for 18 years. She learned river reading through whitewater SUP, is an accomplished surfer, and is a downright shoddy paddler (yep, I’m sleeping on the couch tonight). There are several reasons for this, one of which is due to a series of concussions; she cannot be inverted long enough (or often enough) to learn to roll. She has one in a pool but has been unable to spend the necessary time to transfer this to the river. She is limited to paddling, where flipping is kept to a minimum, as a flip means a swim, which gets old after a few laps.
Maximized the skill set
She has maximized the skill set she’s likely to achieve without being able to practice repeatedly (which de facto means rolling and trying again) and, as such, has been stuck in the intermediate mode for well over a decade.
Each for their own reasons, many others never develop a solid roll, lose their roll, or because they are starting, simply have a poor one, and they all have the same essential restrictions.
Creek boaters say, “Now go run harder and harder stuff and good luck.” The old type of river playboat had a different message, “Go muck about in boats, in a super safe but entertaining environment, enjoy yourself, and take your progression as it comes.”
Someone like my wife has little interest in pushing herself to run harder and harder rivers. In her case, without the ability to ever learn to roll, it’s just not practical. It might be a lack of interest in being in scary environments for others. But playing on nice small and controlled features is something that everyone can get into, and simply put, there are no modern kayaks that do this.
Class 2-3 runs
As my (now eight-year-old) son progresses, we are paddling more and more and running rivers that are interesting to my wife. Class 2-3 runs, littered with play waves and holes that challenge my son as he progresses and entertains my wife.
Since she learned to paddle, I’ve put her in a Dragorossi Pintail (a fantastic little boat that’ll fit into pretty much any little wave, has some speed to be a fair river runner, but not the most forgiving tail in super squirly stuff). A Fluid Spice (very forgiving, can play small features but is not the best at it). A Soul Disco (very forgiving river runner and easy surfer, but a little slow to get into some stuff or on rivers with lots of flat sections). A Riot Booster 60 (Probably the best of all of them as it’s just long enough for some speed, surfs small stuff well, is forgiving enough, but the low knees of those 25-year old boats suck).
For context, she has also paddled a Dragorossi Mafia, a Dragorossi 77, a Remix 69, a Z3, and a Burn and finds none interesting (or too hard to manoeuvre) on class 2-3 playful runs. And none of these are full-on creek boats by modern standards.
However, those river playboats are better than any modern options out there or that list of last generation creekers listed above. In the end, I made her a custom boat that was heavily based on the Booster 60, with raised knees, more overall rocker (especially the nose) with a hull much like the new Disco, and it is by far her favourite boat.
It allows her to paddle comfortably, get away with poor technique or mistakes in squirly funny water, surf waves and holes that are ‘her size’, and generally have a good time paddling, making her want to go. But this is a custom boat, and most people don’t have the access (or the money) to spend on a custom composite kayak (especially as they’re not as resistant as plastic).
And she is hardly the only paddler of this kind. So, where are the boats for this (very large) market? In a word, gone. Extinct.
Adjusting
Perhaps William Arthur Ward was on the right track when he said, “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” Perhaps we simply need to adjust how we design kayaks to suit this group better.
So as I continue to teach people of all sizes, ages, and backgrounds to paddle, I follow up these classes by hunting down 15-20-year-old kayaks (of dubious strength) for them to buy to get into the sport with the best, most suited tool for the job (and it’s not because of the price, as many have the means to buy new). There is simply nothing new on the market to suggest that it is even close to being as good as those old boats.
And yeah, as a manufacturer, I’m just as guilty as everyone else for having neglected this entire segment of paddling. Maybe it’s time for a new Booster, and my wife is pushing me to do it: she wants a plastic version of her custom boat for rocky rivers.
As the writer, Jonathan Winters said, “If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out and meet it.” So that’s what I’m doing!