By Corran Addison
Corran Addison is a regular contributor to the Paddler magazine and owns Soul Waterman
Fashion vs function
You’ll have to forgive the near incoherent ramblings of an ageing athlete, as I wrap my head around phenomena, one that I’ve always known about, and indeed have exploited myself: fashion over function.
Last summer, I’d go out to the Lachines rapids outside my house, and go surf a half dozen waves in my 10’ long 303. I can catch every wave out there, regardless of water level, and indeed zoom from one wave to another at will, flying 20’ across the river to connect from one wave to another, even attaining upstream as much as 10’ to get from a ‘back wave’ to one further upstream.
When I do finally blow it and flush off the waves, most of the time I can blast across the current, ferrying from smaller wave to wave and into the ‘middle’ eddy, so I’m set up to go back out instantly. When I do blow that and end up in the large eddy at the bottom, I have a boat fast enough to take a series of shortcut attainments and within two minutes, I am back at the top.
So, where am I going with this?
Little 6’ playboats are all the rage (or creek boats, but don’t even get me started on the mid-bending hoops that one would have to jump through to justify going out to Lachines in a creeker), and the overwhelming majority of paddlers out there are using those.
Now if you’re a Bren Orton kind of paddler, who’s racking up 1600 points in 45 seconds, doing a series of linked tricks most of us couldn’t even do as stand alone ones in a lifetime, then I’d have to agree, that the Lachines in a 6’ freestyle boat is a lot of fun. As long as you don’t mind limiting yourself to just one or two of the surfable waves out there, and 15-minute paddles back up (or Jet ski lifts for sponsored athletes), and no intent of linking different waves together in the same ride, then you’re good to go.
But how many people have the skill set of Bren, or Dane Jackson or Nick Troutman? The answer is about 10. Worldwide. And how many people have half the skill level of these 10 paddlers? About 200. Worldwide.
Trust me, when I tell you, you ain’t one of them. Hell, neither am I anymore.
Now that I’ve rambled on about how I surf the waves out there in a three-metre kayak, let me paint the picture I see day in and day out of 90% of the other kayakers I encounter out there.
Pyramid Wave
Pierre LePaddler (because you know, you have to invent a silly French name; after all this is Quebec) paddles out of the top eddy, tries to catch Pyramid Wave, which is this beautiful 10’ wide, 7’ high, glassy, peaked wall of pure ecstasy. Most likely he flushes off without getting it at all, but in the event he does momentarily catch it, the surf is limited to sitting in the centre of the peak, and alternating from paddling to stay on, and just sitting there unable to do anything other than stay on. After this brief ride, he flushes off, and most likely misses Mojo behind it; a wave that requires a quick burst of speed towards surfers left to get into the pit.
If he does get it, his range of movement on the wave is limited to the hole on its left, and about three-foot of the green wall on his right, leaving the other 10’ of wave to the right unsurfable.
Given that Pierre is not one of the aforementioned 200 paddlers, his ride consists mainly of front surfing with a 30-degree right hand angle, with a few spins, and perhaps a low angle blunt thrown in before getting tumbled in the hole and spat out. He’s not really surfing it, or carving and moving about – it’s a sort of static in place angled front surf with a series of erratic low angle ‘tricks’.
Then comes the tedious 15+ minute paddle (often also involving getting out and walking over rock shelves several times) back to the top. Forget paddling into the ‘Dalton’ waves midway up to use as a springboard to get back to Mojo or Pyramid: it’s not going to happen even if you have Bren Orton’s skillset. Which Pierre does not!
Big Joe
Since that wasn’t much fun, Pierre now opts for the main wave; Big Joe. At its best in mid-summer, the left side is a fast racy, bouncy green face that alternates between silky smooth, and exploding with boils erupting upwards from the river bottom, with the lip cycling through an all green face, to a crashing soul destroying hole.
To the right, a soft hole-like-wave, sitting about five-foot higher than the pit of the left side, with a massive, fast, green shoulder that extends about 10’ upstream, almost connecting to Pyramid. Left of the pit, another large green shoulder that’s at best fickle and unpredictable. Behind it all, a pounding recirculating hole called Blowing Chunks (because after a beat down in Big Joe you can expect another in this one too). Many a paddler has exited Blowing Chunks ‘sans le kayak’!
Pierre, like 90% of the paddlers out there, drops into the right side of Big Joe, and fights his bouncing, surging, barely controllable boat as it attempts to skittle this way and that. The goal is some sort of semi-controlled front surf, which perhaps will result in a sort of controlled bounce, into some sort of controlled airblunt.
The reality is very different as the boat surges and skips and bounces, heading this way and that (as he usually fights hard NOT to end up in the left hand pit), and every now and then some sort of set up presents itself and Pierre attempts to throw an airblunt. Usually this is little more than a slightly elevated, barely weightless, flat spin, into an ego crushing, bouncing surging side surf, and frantic efforts to pull the nose upstream into the semi-safe front surf that marks ‘position neutral’: momentarily safe from beat down!
After five minutes of fighting the wave, with a dozen elevated flat spins, the inevitable window shade, or simple flush off the waves right side, and you’re back in the bottom eddy ready for a 15-20 min paddle and walk back to the top to repeat this.
Assuming they can even get back up – at high levels it’s a one hit deal in a short boat.
An ageing athlete
Now this is where it gets interesting. Remember, first of all that I’m an ageing athlete, and I’m nowhere near as good as I once was. My reaction times are slower, I’m out of shape, I don’t want water getting blasted in to my nose anymore, and I don’t think getting pounded in one of Big Joe’s cyclic hole crunches is fun like it use to be. I’m not going to win any medals with my rides, and I’m OK with that. What I do want however, is maximum fun, for minimal effort and minimal beat down: not so lofty goals I’d say.
While I own a 16lb six-foot carbon butt bouncing moon rocket that can launch me even today into the biggest airs of my entire paddling career, I almost never ever paddle it. I can do bigger Pan Am’s, cleaner Air Screws, and higher Helix’s today with it than I ever could, because the boat design is so much better, though I’ll grant with far less regularity. I’m still not in the skill class of the ’10’ world’s best, (and arguably not even in the top 200) but I can, when I want to, throw down. For an old guy.
10’ wave surfing machine
However, generally, I don’t paddle it. Honestly, I have more fun, and ultimately, do more out there, in a 10’ wave surfing machine than I can in a six-foot freestyle kayak. I can catch Pyramid with two strokes, slice and dice the wave into submission for as long as my physical stamina can hold out. If I begin to flush, two strokes put me back on. When I’ve had enough, I can carve across from it to Big Joe with a stroke or two, and hit it with speed and drive that allows for a weightless top carve.
Once on this monstrous pounding wave, I can surf in control, using every inch of both sides, doing long sweeping vertical blunts with speed and power. I can carve it like an ocean wave, launch into the pit with a massive vertical blunt that’s visible from 500m downstream, throw some cool linked cartwheels, and then carve back onto the right shoulder.
All with relative low effort and technical ease; because this sort of boat does the work for you.
When I’ve had enough, I can skip effortlessly from Big Joe across to Mojo (that’s 10’ right and about five-foot downstream), and use the entire width of the wave – surfing wide and far out onto the shoulder, cutting back, throwing a few cartwheels in the hole, blasting out into a arching vertical blunt.
If I get bored, I can race from Mojo right to left, carve off the lip, and make the attainment back into Big Joe from downstream. Or, I can surf out the right side of Mojo, across a series of small surging little waves into a micro eddy, and in 5-6 strokes, be into the Daltons where I surf across, throwing ends, blunts and spins, before making the relatively easy attainment from the wave up to Pyramid, and start the entire cycle again.
Am I going to throw a Pan Am, or a Helix in my 10’ boat? Nope. But to be honest given that in a 60-minute session out there in a six-foot boat I might (maybe) throw one airscrew, and 2-3 Pan Ams, it’s not like this is something I really am missing out on.
I’m rambling, aren’t I? And you’re probably wondering if I have a point?
The bottom line is, that since my skill set is not one that can really, truly take advantage of the ultimate potential of a six-foot freestyle kayak, and even if my skill set was, my mind isn’t, I unquestionably have much more fun in something longer, faster, and more varied in its performance style.
Compliment my ride
It’s almost impossible for me to go to Lachines in my 303 and not have pretty much everyone there waiting their turn to compliment my ride in some way. Everything from, “That looked like a lot of fun,” to “how do you go from wave to wave like that,” and “you’re back up here already,” come my way. As they, and their friends, flop and flap about, trying earnestly to emulate the rides that they occasionally see from some of the visiting 200 (or the 10) in the summer months, they can clearly see that I’m doing more out there than anyone else. I’m having fun, and often, one long linked ride is enough for me, and after about 30 minutes of non-stop wave-to-wave movement, I peel off and paddle home. I’ve just had a lot of fun.
And so would Pierre. So why is Pierre in a six-foot freestyle boat?
Because of fashion: the Danes and Brens of the world are in them, the online videos show the top 10, or top 200 in them, and it’s cool. What they do is cool. I know it is. They know it is, and so does Pierre.
However, Pierre, my friend, you will never be able to do a tenth of all the things that make it cool. You’re living an unobtainable dream, and you’re paying for it. Yes, you are having fun out there, but you’d have so much more fun in a boat more suited for your environment and skill set.
Surfing up Pyramid, even with limited skills, is easy to do with even a sub eight-foot boat. The control you’d have on Big Joe would double, and so would your fun as you race about, and the corker is, you’d end up doing the exact same number of moves as you are now: except elevated spins in an eight-foot or 10’ boat actually both look cool, and feel good. You’d have an easier time staying on the wave, use more of it, have an easier time linking some ends, and in a boat that’s closer to 9’-10’, and with just a little practice, bounce from wave to wave like I do.
This story is not unique to the Lachines. I tell the story here as it’s one I see every day. In fact I see it all over the world in my travels. Granted, 10’ is too long for many places (but not as many as you’d think), but there is a new slew of 7’6” type boats out there that are perfectly suited for even the smallest of waves and features.
Pyranha has the Ozone, Liquid Logic the Home Slice and I have the F Bomb with Soul. There are others too. Even though I have the F Bomb, I invariably paddle the 303 more. It’s a ‘little’ easier to do some of the blunting cartwheeling type things with the FB, but even so, I still have more fun with the longer faster boat that can travel further and faster about the waves, and when I do a move, just feels better.
Whether you’re at the Lachines, or at most play features, these sub-eight-foot boats are fast enough to really move around a feature, are stable when vertical, slowing it all down just enough for average skill set people to keep up, can use more of even small features than most six-foot boats. They are looser and faster so you can spin, recover, spin. Frankly, they just do more, with more places, for most people.
1990’s era slicey boats
And yet, fashion rules supreme. I do see some people searching out old 1990’s era longer slicey boats as the points I’m making in this piece become self evident, but ironically, when buying new – it’s either a six-foot freestyle boat, or a creeker/half slice. Sincerely, those boats from the 1990s can’t hold a candle to these new long slicey boats; in performance, or comfort.
Do yourself a favour. Find a friend with one of these new age longer slicey boats, and borrow it. Take it out for multiple sessions (as some skill adaptation is necessary, unless you were already a paddler in that bygone era). You’ll have way more fun, and you’ll thank me for it. Shuck the shackles of fashion, and think about the fun you’d actually have if you got a boat that can optimize your skill set, and your river features.
Let the magnificent 10 show off what those freestyle boats can do on Youtube, while you paddle something far better suited to your own reality.
