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".


Try running that thought past the whitewater kayaking community and see what
kind of reponse you get...

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.



I'm not sure the "reductio ad absurdum" argument works here. You could get
hit by a car crossing the street. We've been debating the class II
whitewater issue, but the original poster just said whitewater. Check
around the whitewater messageboards on the internet sometime, and see what
kinds of whitewater people are tubing, floating, etc. You regularly see
posts about kayakers having to rescue Joe Sixpack or his daughter because
they just aired up their Walmart raft and tryed to float the Chatooga or
something. This guy doesn't strike me as any different; I've seen it too
many times.

I guarantee you that people are taking their lives in their hands on a daily
basis, trying to treat serious whitewater rivers as a "float stream."


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.

It's not a knee jerk reaction. You're right that it's a valid question.
And the answer to that question is: rec boats shouldn't be on whitewater.
Period. They're designed for fla****er, or typical moving water, not
whitewater. I don't see any difference between suggesting that it's OK for
this guy to paddle whitewater in a boat not designed for it, or suggesting
that it's OK to get out on Tampa Bay wearing a cotton Tshirt and PFD stowed
in your hatch because its a calm day and the weather forecast is clear. If
you're going to be safe, be safe. Too many people are getting hurt or
killed out there because they're rolling the dice.