paddler-summer15-pg12-13

Nantahala Race Redoux

•a Carolina Paddler story

by Paul Scrutton

It has been 7 years since I reported on my attempt to paddle a Wildwater Kayak down the Nantahala (August 2015 Paddler article) . Alton, our Carolina Paddler editor, invited me to put into print what my thoughts are on that day given the time that has passed since making the run. First let’s get the stats on the run:

• 2 hours 45 mins to go from the Forest Service put in to the landing above the Nanatahala Falls.
• 2 swims (one at Patton’s, the other near Quarry), one loss of paddle (recovered and hand delivered back to me).
• first time paddling a wildwater boat on whitewater – CHECK.
• Bruised ego.

One thing I didn’t mention in the original article was that I did meet up with some of the racers at the end of the day, gave a brief account of my day and one of them said, that sounds about right for your first day in a wildwater boat.What was my motivation for paddling a wildwater boat you may ask? Well, having entered the Nantahala race a few times, each year I paddled longer and longer boats, and started posting faster times. Racing against other competitors, some of whom are in composite wildwater boats, it is hard to ignore the flat out speed that these boats have as they pass you.

Wildwater events are typified by 2 styles – a classic which is a multi-mile distance event over whitewater (typically 5 miles), and a whitewater sprint style which is a very short event of a few hundred feet. Boats used are composite and have a minimum weight (of 10kg) . Wildwater kayaks are long (4.5 m/14 ft 9 in, 4.3m for C1) and typically narrow (60 cm/23.6 in), they are narrow displacement hulls with a knife like front leading edge, fast, lacking stability and challenging to turn. As mentioned in the article, the boats have wings to meet the old minimum width rule and this part of the boat is not in the water (sits above). The minimum width rule has been abandoned for 2022 so expect some changes in the look of these boats in the future.

As a point of comparison, wildwater boats are very different from the kayaks used in the Green Narrows race.  The Dagger Green boat is a typical Green River race boat for the long boat category. It is 11’9″, made of plastic, and weighs 55 lbs. A typical wildwater kayak is carbon kevlar composite, is 14’9″ long and weighs about 22-25 lbs. Wildwater boats are more of a niche boat and work well in rivers that have a lot of water, less rocks, and little turning – higher flow rivers.

 I had been on a quest to buy a wildwater kayak for a couple of years and Chris Hipgrave put one of his old boats up for sale and I snapped it up. He assured me that this boat would be a good fit for me, as good as any would (they do come in many models of differing sizes and this was a large one).   I am 6’0, 240 lbs.   As Chris Hipgrave reminded me, they don’t make wildwater boats for people of our shapes, so we have to make do with the larger ones that do fit us. While the boats are custom constructed, they aren’t custom built larger or smaller for a paddler. There are different models built from different molds, some suit smaller paddlers, some suit larger paddlers.

I did make a purchasing error earlier in the year remotely buying a Wildwater Team D C1 barn-find boat (they look similar) – and when it was delivered the outfitting looked very “C” like.  I was able to confirm my suspicions when I found the wildwater competition specs online and measured the boat width (C1’s are wider).

Going back to the race, I think that the main way things went wrong that day were due to insufficent preparation in boat outfitting, over-confidence in my abilities to jump into a new boat, and a complete lack of practice in paddling the new boat. Some pretty glaring errors one might say.

Let’s tackle the outfitting first. While the cockpit fits me very snugly on this boat, I hadn’t made more than a token effort at outfitting my foot placement in the boat. While serious racers install a wall or footbar in their boats to give them something to push on, time was running against me in preparing for the race. I had found time to duct tape two small pieces of minicell foam to the floor to give my feet something to push against. While this helped a little it did nothing to dispel the thought that if the boat flipped over, I could be dragged into the inside of this 14′ long boat and then would have to figure out how to extract myself while trying to hold my breath. A little grimly imaginative perhaps but it seemed like a real danger at the time. With this possibility in the back of my mind, when the time came and the boat did flip, it made me reach for the grabloop rather than try to perform a roll. The small cockpit added more concern to the equation. When you’ve been paddling keyhole cockpits with step out pillars for so long, you get used to such luxuries.

Let’s consider the over-confidence with jumping into a faster boat. It is fair to say that having done the race several times in longer and longer boats, I was getting a little complacent with my skills and the Nantahala. My prior attempt was using a Pyranha Speeder; the Speeder is a hair tippy when you start paddling it, but the instability goes away quickly, and you feel like you are paddling a sea kayak down the Nantahala. Set up moves far in advance, span the holes with the boat and try to avoid burying the nose on wavetrains by paddling beside them, avoiding slow downs. The result? Hitting the one hour 2 minute mark for all 8 miles of the Nanatahala. You get the picture. Nice day on the river. I was feeling good running the race, and was ready to take on a new challenge.

Let’s move to the lack of practice. Given that I was very comfortable paddling the river, I only found time to take the wildwater boat to the Chapel Hill pool once to check it out. What I was initially alarmed with at the pool was it’s lack of stability. I had to have someone hold the boat while I put the skirt on as I could not balance it and put the skirt on by myself. I had to brace the boat a lot to paddle it anywhere in the pool: it was super tippy. I spent about an hour at the pool and was able to paddle up and down the pool by the end of the pool session, albeit quite hesitantly with a lot of bracing. The race was months later as I recall. By the time the race came, I had a rather rosy memory of the one pool session, and figured that I had 8 miles to figure out how to paddle the boat. While I did contemplate taking it on the Tuckaseegee, I figured that it would not be a good fit to paddle with a group taking in the scenery, and didn’t really want to commit to trying to paddle the boat all day in a slow group. I got a sharp reality check at the race when I pulled away from the put in channel and had to balance the boat in flat water. I’ve heard that when taking on a tippier boat (eg. Like a waveski, tippy surf kayak, etc), paddling it 3 times a week for several weeks will get you to the point where your core muscles are working to keep the boat balanced and you get used to it and feel more comfortable.

So, the takeaways I have are as follows, and maybe this is helpful in a general way to our readership:

• Outfit the boat. Take your time to do so. Get the outfitting nailed down to boost confidence in your preparation and your equipment and to dispel any bad thoughts.
• Prepare on easier water. It’s not that the desired water is a difficult paddle, it’s the new boat that makes it difficult. A smart thing to do here, might have been to paddle several local lake sessions (Lake Jordan/Crabtree), then progress to easy moving water.
• Paddling a new boat and using a wing paddle for about the second time in combination with each other isn’t a great plan. Add new items one by one and get familiar with them. For those uninitiated, A wing paddle is a paddle that has a scooped blade like a spoon, which allows more water to be collected in it. The top edge of the blade is curled over itself. These paddles can net you a little more power than a typical blade for forward strokes, but are harder to use for other strokes.
• Paddling a tippy boat is going to take weeks of preparation.
• You won’t set any speed records in a boat if you are spending all your effort trying to keep upright. It feels ridiculous actually.

Do I still have the boat? Sure. Have I paddled it since that event? No. Will I paddle it again? Maybe  one day. It may come out at a roll session one summer at Lake Jordan.