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  #21   Report Post  
Geoff Jennings
 
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Default River Grades - Rafts vs Kayaks



Which brings up a problem, and perhaps the reason the 10-step scale
has fallen into disuse: if the rating of the rapid must be changed to
suit the craft, then you are not actually rating the rapid, *per se*,
you are rating the rapid/craft combination. By contemporary thinking,
the difficulty of a rapid should be intrinsic to the rapid, measured
by objective criteria, and irrelevant to the nature of any craft that
might attempt the rapid.


I think we should rate rapids based on a combination of both the rapid, the
boat, and the paddler. For instance, there is a rapid, that shall remain
nameless due to embarrassment, that flips me every time. It's "easier" than
many other rapids I paddle, and I've done it a few dozen times, and yet, it
flips me. I think it should be at least a V.

Geoff


  #22   Report Post  
Bill Tuthill
 
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Default River Grades - Rafts vs Kayaks


ZattleBone wrote:

A friend has just come back from South Africa where (as a complete
rafting novice) he was running Grade 5. The kayakers supporting the
raft all went off to do a Grade 6 run in the afternoon. The numbers
seem a bit high to me.


The original poster never followed up, so we don't know which rivers
these were. The Cassady/Dunlap book _World_Whitewater_ describes
only two difficult runs in South Africa:

Orange River (Senqu) gorge below Augrabies Falls, 8 km, class 4+ P
Tugela River, Colenso to Causeway Bridge, 64 km, class 4 P

Perhaps the "P" (for portage) is now being run and is class 5 or 5+.
In my opinion, if kayakers are regularly running a class 6 drop now,
either it was overrated, or has changed to class 5.

  #23   Report Post  
riverman
 
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Default River Grades - Rafts vs Kayaks


"Wilko" wrote in message
news:FiI9b.44905$tK5.5172590@zonnet-reader-1...


I know here in Kinshasa, I have had so many people tell me how the

rapids on
the outskirts of town here are 'Unrunnable' that I want to puke. Its
basically a solid class 5-, with an entrance where you skirt a huge Lava
LedgeHole-sized pourover, run a Hance Lookalike wave train, then catch a
Niagara Whirlpool-sized eddy. I've run stuff this big in rafts a dozen

times
with no problem. The stuff downstream is rumored to be worse, but I

wonder
if its just continuous instead......


Sounds like you need to get a couple of rafters and their equipment over
there... :-)


Not that I haven't thought about that!! Some Belgian (or French) guys tried
to run the gorge about 10 years ago, and the story says that they
disappeared without a trace. Not that I doubt that some folks died trying
it, but the 'disappeared without a trace' part sounds like my information
sources are uneducated. And I know that boating technology has come a long
way in 10 years. Without seeing the actual gorge (thats in the works via
charter flight) I can't say for sure, but my gut feeling is that the gorge
is actually runnable, and its only a matter of logistics and equipment. I'm
really looking forward to the flyover.

I tell you what, if some posters (or lurkers) want to start planning an epic
expedition, I'm ready to participate. We'd need some safety kayakers.

--riverman


  #24   Report Post  
riverman
 
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Default River Grades - Rafts vs Kayaks


"Oci-One Kanubi" wrote in message
m...
"riverman" typed
Which brings up a problem, and perhaps the reason the 10-step scale
has fallen into disuse: if the rating of the rapid must be changed to
suit the craft, then you are not actually rating the rapid, *per se*,
you are rating the rapid/craft combination. By contemporary thinking,
the difficulty of a rapid should be intrinsic to the rapid, measured
by objective criteria, and irrelevant to the nature of any craft that
might attempt the rapid.

I think.


Well, there you go thinking again. We've warned you about that. :-)

Anytime a rating description uses a boat, then its impossible for it NOT to
be a rapid/craft combination. The Class 10 explanation "An inexperienced
boatman in a dependable craft..." actually implies a rapid/craft/boatman
skill connection. However, I think these are all interpretations of the
river itself, and the craft/boatman connection comes out in the description
only. Exactly like what happens when you try to translate from one language
to another. Maybe "petit amie" translates exactly to "little friend" in
english, but any french-speaker know that it really means the equivalent
of 'girlfriend'. I say "the equavalent" because that is an English
translation of a French word. The actual word, to any Frenchman, is "petit
amie".

Saying "a rapid is Class III" means exactly the same thing to a canoeist, a
doryman, a kayaker, a paddleboater and a swimmer; the rapid is Class III.
How they translate that to a flatlander varies according to the boatman,
the craft, etc. The problem is that we keep trying to translate river
rating systems, even to other boatmen, when we really need to just learn to
think in them.

--riverman


  #25   Report Post  
Wilko
 
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Default River Grades - Rafts vs Kayaks

riverman wrote:

Well, there you go thinking again. We've warned you about that. :-)

Exactly like what happens when you try to translate from one language
to another. Maybe "petit amie" translates exactly to "little friend" in
english, but any french-speaker know that it really means the equivalent
of 'girlfriend'. I say "the equavalent" because that is an English
translation of a French word. The actual word, to any Frenchman, is "petit
amie".


Oh my, now you're getting on a slippery slope: with all the languages
being spoken by the posters on paddling forums, even those who share a
common language (i.e. English) can get confused by the use of that
language by other native speakers.

I remember an incident where a British paddler told a U.S. paddler who
just had a bad experience to get ****ed. The U.S. paddler took that as
to get mad, even though the advise of the first person was to get
completely drunk...

Saying "a rapid is Class III" means exactly the same thing to a canoeist, a
doryman, a kayaker, a paddleboater and a swimmer; the rapid is Class III.
How they translate that to a flatlander varies according to the boatman,
the craft, etc. The problem is that we keep trying to translate river
rating systems, even to other boatmen, when we really need to just learn to
think in them.


When I first started paddling with open boaters in the U.S., I
recognised their ratings of rapids. What baffled me was that their lines
seemed to be so much different than mine! If I rate a rapid, I take a
"virtual" line through a rapid in a kayak and I do so in the assumption
that it's the easiest route down. It's often possible to run harder
lines in that same rapid, but that's not all that interesting for rating
it, IMO.

Now here come these open boaters who run something unknown to me,
leading. I follow them blindly, faithfully, and get hammered in some holes!

A good lesson from those trips is to pick my own line, but taking their
remarks about possible dangers at heart! :-)
The best open boater's line through a rapid isn't always the best
kayaker's line.

--
Wilko van den Bergh
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.
http://wilko.webzone.ru/



  #26   Report Post  
Wilko
 
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Default River Grades - Rafts vs Kayaks

Dave Manby wrote:

One of the biggest differences between Europe and the USA in grades is
the description that goes with it. British paddlers are notorious at
understating the river - not under-grading - but understating it. Brits
may well tell you - with little knowledge of your ability maybe 'You'll
be OK its only a grade IV ' whereas in the states you are likely to be
told 'Its graded IV but the crux has a nasty undercut........ '


Thinking about how we paddled stuff in Europe with a mixed U.S.-Euro
group, I was surprised by how often the danger factor was seemingly
seamlessly integrated by the U.S. paddlers in their rating of a rapid we
were looking at. We looked at the difficulty of staying on the line, and
we noted the dangers associated with messing up there.

The first time I ran the Gauley I was very cautious to begin with - till
I teamed up with a bunch of other kayak paddlers (I was travelling on my
own) - I was expecting run like the bottom end of the Ubaye whereas it
turned out to be more like the racecourse section in my memories (1987)


Ditto experience here.

The only difference in my first Gauley run was that someone had told me
that we would run the entire upper-middle-lower stretch, without me
knowing that it was a marathon length (40+ km) trip! For someone who's
used to paddling moving water, all those quiet floats in between the big
rapids take up an extraordinary amount of energy, especially in the hot
weather we had that day!

--
Wilko van den Bergh
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

  #27   Report Post  
Wilko
 
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Default River Grades - Rafts vs Kayaks

Geoff Jennings wrote:

I think we should rate rapids based on a combination of both the rapid, the
boat, and the paddler. For instance, there is a rapid, that shall remain
nameless due to embarrassment, that flips me every time. It's "easier" than
many other rapids I paddle, and I've done it a few dozen times, and yet, it
flips me. I think it should be at least a V.


big grin

Come to think of it, I know a rapid which my GF refuses to run, because
she's "not sure that she's good enough". She accidentally ran it several
years ago, acing it. Now that she's progressed several classes and finds
it well within her ability, she seems to find new excuses not to run it.

Funny thing is that she runs much harder stuff everywhere else, just not
that one rapid.

--
Wilko van den Bergh
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

  #28   Report Post  
riverman
 
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Default River Grades - Rafts vs Kayaks


"Wilko" wrote in message
news:dKX9b.44958$tK5.5233861@zonnet-reader-1...
riverman wrote:

Well, there you go thinking again. We've warned you about that. :-)

Exactly like what happens when you try to translate from one language
to another. Maybe "petit amie" translates exactly to "little friend" in
english, but any french-speaker know that it really means the

equivalent
of 'girlfriend'. I say "the equavalent" because that is an English
translation of a French word. The actual word, to any Frenchman, is

"petit
amie".


Oh my, now you're getting on a slippery slope: with all the languages
being spoken by the posters on paddling forums, even those who share a
common language (i.e. English) can get confused by the use of that
language by other native speakers.


Too true, which highlights my statement that we all need to "think in River
Grades, not in translations of River Grades." When someone says 'its a class
4', everyone in every boat, every country, every experience level should be
visualizing the same type of difficulty. Then they can each determine for
themselves if they can run it, in the boat they currently are sitting in.
But the rating is a property of the rapid, not of the boater, boat or skill.

When I first started paddling with open boaters in the U.S., I
recognised their ratings of rapids. What baffled me was that their lines
seemed to be so much different than mine! If I rate a rapid, I take a
"virtual" line through a rapid in a kayak and I do so in the assumption
that it's the easiest route down. It's often possible to run harder
lines in that same rapid, but that's not all that interesting for rating
it, IMO.


Which brings us to the REAL question: is a rating for a rapid, or for a
line? I think that it should be for the line, exactly how climbers rate
climbs, not mountains. Saying "Zungo Rapids" is a IV could mean several
things: the easiest run through is a IV, the most common route is a IV, or
the 'average' route is a IV. These have vastly different ramifications, so
instead, it would be wise to say "the popular route down the middle is a IV,
the sneak route on the left is a II, and there's a class V run if you go
down the right." I think most boaters talk to each other that way all the
time, but the guidebooks seem out of synch.

And open boaters will alway overrate rapids. Its just too damn embarassing
to be that scared and wet after a class II rapid! It must have been class
IV... Mary had a post several years ago about swimming a class III, and it
really highlighted how people overrate rapids. I'll see if I can find it.

--riverman


  #29   Report Post  
Mary Malmros
 
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Default River Grades - Rafts vs Kayaks

Dave Manby writes:

One of the biggest differences between Europe and the USA in grades is
the description that goes with it. British paddlers are notorious at
understating the river - not under-grading - but understating it. Brits
may well tell you - with little knowledge of your ability maybe 'You'll
be OK its only a grade IV ' whereas in the states you are likely to be
told 'Its graded IV but the crux has a nasty undercut........ '


Hee! My limited experience leads me to believe that that's a Brit
thing indeed, culturally, and not just limited to rivers. I'm
reminded of that bit from the movie "Casino Royale" when the
shooting starts and the American and Chinese and Russian generals
are going nuts and screaming on the phone, and the British general
is saying, "Em, Pernilla? I'm afraid I won't be home for tea. Bit
of a war's broken out!"

Ah yes, fond memories of the Sun Kosi and Rob Hind saying, "Bit of a
class II coming up, nothing but a few waves really..." Or Green
Slime saying, "The next rapid? Dunno, really...can't be much of
anything, can it?"

--
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::::::::::::
Mary Malmros
Some days you're the windshield,
Other days you're the bug.
  #30   Report Post  
Oci-One Kanubi
 
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Default River Grades - Rafts vs Kayaks

"Geoff Jennings" typed:

[snip hypothesis]


I think we should rate rapids based on a combination of both the rapid, the
boat, and the paddler. For instance, there is a rapid, that shall remain
nameless due to embarrassment, that flips me every time. It's "easier" than
many other rapids I paddle, and I've done it a few dozen times, and yet, it
flips me. I think it should be at least a V.


This, Geoff, seems like an elementary problem in physics. Get one of
yer grad students on it.

-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
--
================================================== ====================
Richard Hopley, Winston-Salem, NC, USA
rhopley[at]earthlink[dot]net 1-301-775-0471
Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll.
rhople[at]wfubmc[dot]edu 1-336-713-5077
OK, OK; computer programming for scientific research also matters.
================================================== ====================
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