"Felsenmeer" wrote in
:


Class I, Class II, Class III, .......
Can you expect somebody, who is obviously without any clue and
experience, to know what he is going to do and to judge the class of a
river section on a given day?

I agree with you. The original poster appears to be "obviously without
any clue and experience." Thus he's not in a position to judge the
difficulties and danger of whatever whitewater he chooses to paddle.
As a result, he's potentially a danger to himself and anyone else on
the river.

Yet everyone chose to ignore the issue of experience and focused on the boat
that he wanted to paddle. I don't recall seeing "if you want to paddle on
whitewater you should take some classes first".

Sure, the look of foaming roaring rapids is kind of discouraging and
will make people reconsider their plans, but there are spots which
look very easy/harmless and turn out to be the real killers.

Which is why I suggest that even class II water is unsafe for someone
who doesn't know what he's doing.

While I agree that even class II water *can* have catastrophic consequenses
(as could tripping and falling head first into a bathtub full of water) the
risks are most likely pretty low. I would guess that one puts themselves in
greater risk driving back and forth to the river.


Up to a certain point the boater's skills are the limit, then the
material comes in.


Absolutely. And if the boater's skills are limited, trouble may not be
too far ahead. The kind of boat you paddle isn't going to help you,
your skills and abilities are.

The whole discussion is a bit gaga, and I wonder if somebody came up
with an idea to stuff the summer hole in this group by throwing a
stupid idea around


It *is* a bit gaga. If the original poster hadn't responded to some of
the replies, I would have guessed this was all one big troll.

Baloney. Given the huge growth of recreational kayaks in the past few years
it's a valid question that deserves more than a knee jerk reaction.