Bill, I am almost never on trips with OC-2s, because almost nobody
paddles whitewater in OC-2s. When I am "social-boating" easy streams
it tends not to be an issue, because most of that crowd aren't
hard-strokers anyway.

Last weekend I went, for the first time in years, on a self-supported
canoe camper -- the Roanoke River below the Fall Line on the Coastl
Plain of Eastern NC. There were two guys soloing trippers (a 16'
Penobscot and a 17' Grumman), one guy in a 14' Bluehole Sunburst II,
one guy in a 12'xx" Mohawk Shaman, and me in my 12'4" Prodigy X. I
didn't see much of the guy in the Shaman, because he got on the water
as much as a half-hour ahead of the rest of us and we caught up with
him as we neared lunch stop, or the end of each day. I noticed that I
needed to take one stroke for each three of the Grumman paddler and for
each two of the Bluehole paddler, just to keep up. But keep up I did
-- I'm in training for my retirement trek (eight years from now),
remember? -- even though we were doing nearly 4 mph with almost no
current to assist us.

I was kinda sore by the end of day two; then I remembered that this was
just how I felt when I was a beginning paddler. At the time I thought
it was inexperience and un-conditioned muscles. Now I realize that,
when I was beginning, all the trips were led by old-schoolers in those
big long boats, whereas I have always paddled shorter whitewater boats.
So now I think those old guys weren't so much tougher than I after
all!

-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
--
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Richard Hopley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Winston-Salem, NC, USA
.. . . Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll . . ..
rhopley[at]earthlink[dot]net . . . . . . . . . .. cell: (301) 775-0471
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Bill Tuthill wrote:
Oci-One Kanubi wrote:

Generally speaking, you should consider what kind of whitewater you
like best: if you like big water you could get one of the longer boats
suggested here, but if you like (as I do) tight, technical streams then
you should go for a shorter boat that is rated to carry your weight.

Hey Oci-Wan, when you're on a trip with OC-2 boats having two paddlers,
are you able to keep up?

Last weekend I ran the lower lower Tuolumne (class 1) to watch salmon
with a buncha open canoes. I was paddling my inflatable kayak of course.
We had four canoe flips. In one rescue I did, it was amazing how easily
the boat slipped thru the water, even though it was completely swamped!
Amazing underwater hull speed.

I had to paddle hard to keep up with the OC-2 flotilla, especially
in sections with slow-moving water.