wrote:

It certainly seems you are much, much safer if you can stay in the
boat, and to remain motivated to stay in the boat some form of
snorkel/air tube could certainly help -- and this is just an obvious
and trivial $3 bit of plastic. It could be standard equipment on ww
kayaks.

We're talking class V white water in this case, with a pretty decent
volume of water in the case of Charlie's hole at that day. I don't
believe for one moment that you can stay upside down in your boat in
that hole and still breathe through a snorkel. You're being tossed
around violently and there is a lot of water being poured on top of you.

I can think of plenty of similar situations where the water is moving so
violently that even being able to hold the pipe of the snorkel above the
surface is not possible. Besides, considering that it's probably not
possible for your buddies to get to you (without taking an enormous risk
themselves) and with you being unable to see what they are doing, a
rescue effort from shore can be a daunting challenge.

IIRC a very good U.S. boater swam out of Charlie's hole shortly before
Scott died there... He obviously didn't see an alternative, if he wasn't
forced out of his boat by the water. Staying in your boat isn't always
an option!

I've yet to come across a situation where having a snorkel would make a
difference on someone being in trouble on whitewater. That definitely
makes me skeptical about always carrying one around for such a very rare
eventuality. I think that the Dragorossi approach might work better, but
even there one can question the effectiveness of such a device in
violently moving whitewater.

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://kayaker.nl/

Wow! This thread degenerated into a rather tangential subject!!

Just wanted to add another remembrance of Scott Bristow from the old
RBP days. I remember! I still have my old and worn RBP tee shirt with
the emblem of Scott hand paddling his 007 too! And an RBP sticker on
the back of my Grateful Heads helmet too, cause it's oval, and a bit
smaller than the Grateful Heads logo sticker. Every once in a while
someone notices it and asks me about it too, and I let them know that
there *was* an internet presence for boaters before the WWW and
Boatertalk days!

And Scott was among the creme of the crop in those bygone days.

Happy Thanksgiving all! :-)

John Kuthe...

wrote in news:1164401063.689912.215920@
45g2000cws.googlegroups.com:

Wow! This thread degenerated into a rather tangential subject!!

Just wanted to add another remembrance of Scott Bristow from the old
RBP days. I remember! I still have my old and worn RBP tee shirt with
the emblem of Scott hand paddling his 007 too!

I still have two of them, one of each design.

And an RBP sticker on
the back of my Grateful Heads helmet too, cause it's oval, and a bit
smaller than the Grateful Heads logo sticker. Every once in a while
someone notices it and asks me about it too, and I let them know that
there *was* an internet presence for boaters before the WWW and
Boatertalk days!

And Scott was among the creme of the crop in those bygone days.

Then there was the Rat. I've only seen one person with a rat attached to
his helmut.

John Fereira wrote:
wrote in news:1164401063.689912.215920@
45g2000cws.googlegroups.com:
Just wanted to add another remembrance of Scott Bristow from the old
RBP days. I remember! I still have my old and worn RBP tee shirt with
the emblem of Scott hand paddling his 007 too!

I still have two of them, one of each design.

I also still have some RBP T-shirts, both designs. Some sweaters too.

And an RBP sticker on
the back of my Grateful Heads helmet too, cause it's oval, and a bit
smaller than the Grateful Heads logo sticker. Every once in a while
someone notices it and asks me about it too, and I let them know that
there *was* an internet presence for boaters before the WWW and
Boatertalk days!

And Scott was among the creme of the crop in those bygone days.

Then there was the Rat. I've only seen one person with a rat attached to
his helmut.

I still have that plastic Rat... After it was "kidnapped", it literally
went all over the world!

Interesting character, that Rattso. One of the few kayakers almost my
size. Pretty good boater too! He used to spend some time on BT, but
rarely surfaces there nowadays.

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://kayaker.nl/

"Wilko" wrote in message
...

I still have that plastic Rat... After it was "kidnapped", it literally
went all over the world!

There were actually two of those rats. After it was kidnapped and sent
around the world, someone introduced a second rat into the mix... One of
them spent some time with me, and went on holiday with my family. I hope
one found its way back to its master.


-Paul

Paul Skoczylas wrote:
"Wilko" wrote in message
...
I still have that plastic Rat... After it was "kidnapped", it literally
went all over the world!

There were actually two of those rats. After it was kidnapped and sent
around the world, someone introduced a second rat into the mix... One of
them spent some time with me, and went on holiday with my family. I hope
one found its way back to its master.

I suspect that there were a lot more than two. Rattso did tell me that
he expected to have them escape from his helmet every once in a while,
especially when getting one of his famous self-inflicted trashings
(still swimless in...). I think one of them managed to get three paws
out of the straps holding it to the helmet before Rattso managed to get
out of the hole. :-)

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://kayaker.nl/

"Paul Skoczylas" wrote in
news:lbL9h.853$uj6.733@edtnps89:

"Wilko" wrote in message
...

I still have that plastic Rat... After it was "kidnapped", it
literally went all over the world!

There were actually two of those rats. After it was kidnapped and sent
around the world, someone introduced a second rat into the mix... One
of them spent some time with me, and went on holiday with my family. I
hope one found its way back to its master.

The one I saw just just a bit after the infamous ratnapping and I never had
heard that the first was returned. I saw the second rat, I believe, and met
it's doting owner at Moosefest. I caught my first glimpse as he was running
Fowlersville falls.

John Fereira wrote:
"Paul Skoczylas" wrote in
news:lbL9h.853$uj6.733@edtnps89:

"Wilko" wrote in message
...

I still have that plastic Rat... After it was "kidnapped", it
literally went all over the world!

There were actually two of those rats. After it was kidnapped and sent
around the world, someone introduced a second rat into the mix... One
of them spent some time with me, and went on holiday with my family. I
hope one found its way back to its master.

The one I saw just just a bit after the infamous ratnapping and I never had
heard that the first was returned. I saw the second rat, I believe, and met
it's doting owner at Moosefest. I caught my first glimpse as he was running
Fowlersville falls.

I rediscovered Ratt's link in my favorites file the other day:
http://marina.fortunecity.com/heron/456/ .

Like many of you, Thanksgiving always brings back memories of both
Scott and Brian Reuff. Brian was a UNCA student who died over
Thanksgiving Break 2004 on a high water run of the Green Narrows:
http://www.steepcreeks.com/brian_reuff.jpg

-- Chris Bell

The Riviera Ratt and the Round-the-World Rat (or maybe an impostor that
was good enough to fool Riviera) were reunited at Gauley Festival.
Wilko van den Bergh, Chris Bell, Leland Davis and I (IIRC) were tasked
with the hostage exchange. I don't remember what the Revered Ratt had
to do to get the Roaming Rat back (he might have been required to make
a contribution of a particular sum to American Whitewater).

We had scheduled a huge production on the Festival bandstand while the
band was on break, and it was a massive anti-climax; it seems that a
tiny proportion of Gauley-festerers were RBP readers, and the rest just
didn't know or care what we were doing.

-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
--
================================================== ====================
Richard Hopley Winston-Salem, NC, USA
.. rhopley[at]earthlink[dot]net
.. Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll
.. rhopley[at]wfubmc[dot]edu
.. OK, OK; computer programming for scientific research also matters
================================================== ====================


John Fereira wrote:
"Paul Skoczylas" wrote in
news:lbL9h.853$uj6.733@edtnps89:

"Wilko" wrote in message
...

I still have that plastic Rat... After it was "kidnapped", it
literally went all over the world!

There were actually two of those rats. After it was kidnapped and sent
around the world, someone introduced a second rat into the mix... One
of them spent some time with me, and went on holiday with my family. I
hope one found its way back to its master.

The one I saw just just a bit after the infamous ratnapping and I never had
heard that the first was returned. I saw the second rat, I believe, and met
it's doting owner at Moosefest. I caught my first glimpse as he was running
Fowlersville falls.