The Hammer Factor

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Hollllly frijoles peeps…Its episode 50 of the Hammer Factor. Who would have guessed. And what a show we have today. Coming up, we’ll have

• the usual round of nuttiness from our beloved listeners,

Before we get started though, lets reflect on what the hell is going on in paddling. Since we last recorded, we have had two drownings on popular whitewater rivers…Thoughts? Grace- do you want to tell us “what we know” as NPR likes to say?

If that’s not enough for you, lets get louis to dump more shit on your lap. And on to viewer mail. Cue the Rush Sturges Mail Song!

Before we get started, it’s worth noting that we received only one VM this week, and it was a butt dial. This raises two important questions:

Hmm..

On to our first guest, Doc Rocco.

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Show notes April 27 2018

WOW. What a show we have today. Celebrities, schemes, shark v bear, the roll out of Hammer Factor VM, and much much more.

So lets catch up shall we? What have we been up to? Lots of love on Nicole, Some comments on the weed segment, BV is riled up over Earl, with calls for a new earl/lotus position on SUP t- shirt

On to Louis’s seg:

Well, well it’s listener mail (cue Rush’s theme song) now with VM!

• and in preparation for our first guest, we introduce a top-notch idea: the Anonymous Doping Racing Guy.

ON TO OUR GUESTS!!!

And Rants and raves

Show Sponsors:

Nicole Mansfield comes on the show and fills us in on her recent multi-sport trip in the Frank Church Wilderness, Ben Kinsella shares a sincere letter about finding your stoke after tradgedy and of course rants and raves. As always thanks for listening.

Old School Boat Review

I know what you and most or the Hammer Factor audience are thinking…”Who/what the fuck is Hydra?” “They had a Dragonfly II?…Was there a Dragonfly I?”

Well, Hydra was a player in the 1980s-early 1990s plastic boat industry. (We had so many choices in plastic boats from Perception, Prijon, Noah, Hydra, and a few from Seda and Wavesport in 1988ish!) They were based in Tennessee and went through several different ownerships, before ceasing production. But a few things of note about Hydra:

-They were manufactured for a while by plastics manufacturers that molded all sorts of other plastic equipment/products. First, Plastics Industries in Athens TN, later Rotocast Plastics in Knoxville TN produced Hydra boats. They also made sea kayaks and rec boats, in addition to whitewater designs. 30+ years ago, it seems like kayak companies had the same challenges as companies today in regards to manufacturing costs/facilities and the viability of standalone kayak production.

-Hydra was one of the first kayak companies to use linear polyethylene (market as Tuf-lite), while most everyone else at the time used cross-link.

-They manufactured many of Tom Johnson’s (of Hollowform) designs, such as the Taurus, Swift, Centaur and Duet, as well as western designs such as the Mustang/Matador.

-Hydra made the only plastic whitewater C2, the Duet.

I remember seeing ads for Hydra in old AW Journal magazines and Canoe magazine. I even saw one or two on the river, when I was learning the sport on the Lower Yough. At the time, I thought that the name “Dragonfly” sounded way cooler than “Dancer” or “T-Slalom”. Lately, I’ve seen more Tauruses on Craigslist than Dragonflies. So, I don’t think that they sold too many.

The Dragonfly was one of their later designs (late 80s) and marketed at the time as a lower volume, high performance playboat.

(Above info gathered from memory and Sue Taft’s book The River Chasers.)

Specs:

Length: 11’ 10’’

*I’m not sure what changes/improvements from the original Dragonfly constituted the name change to the Dragonfly II. It was the 1980s. Sequels were “the new big thing” in 80’s culture.

I found a Hydra Dragonfly one day in Steamboat at a used outdoor/sporting equipment store. They were asking $40. I walked out the door with it in exchange for $20 of hard cold cash.

Initial Impression:

Looks like a cross between a Dagger Response and Crossfire, stretched out to 12’ in length. The plastic is really soft and pliable. Amazing that it doesn’t show any brittleness or cracks. (Yay for linear polyethylene!) It’s really lightweight for a long, high volume kayak. The original stickers/graphics have fallen off, but I’m pretty sure it’s a Dragonfly II, may be a I, but I think it’s a II. *It’s really hard to find any info or images of these boats online.

Outfitting:

The seat is lightweight thermoformed plastic that needs to have foam hip pads glued in. The footbraces are sturdy sliding aluminum, with a trigger on the back for adjustment. The thigh hooks look funky. They are positioned closer to the center pillar than most other boats. But, once sitting in it, I realize that they are really comfortable with the ability to lock your knees out or relax them towards the center. There’s just an old foam sleeping pad block bungeed to the rear pillar for a backbrace. The ethafoam walls are a bid crushed/shrunken from age (and probably laden with spider eggs).

I’ve paddled it a couple of times on Gore Creek in Vail (class III-IV, 800-1000 cfs, extremely cold water) and the Eagle River below Dowd Chute (continuous class III+ at 2500 cfs).

On river performance:

Speedy! One of the faster 12’ boats that I have paddled. The length and flat deck shed water better than expected. The wide flat section under and behind the seat offer great stability. Carving into eddies is not terrible. It doesn’t spin on a dime, but it’s no battle ship either. A good balance between length/speed and maneuverability. You can get it to where you want in the river. If not, the length and pointy ends keep you from getting caught in holes. Also, it’s still a relatively dry boat, only a few sponges worth of water at the end of the day. It front surfs bigger flatter waves fairly well. Didn’t get a chance to try some enders, but I bet they are stratospheric in this thing. *A constant thought during my run was that some of the current designers of modern longboats should take a look at the hull of this and see what makes it work.

Overall impression:

Fun boat! The Hydra Dragonfly is/was seriously underrated, as a fast stable 12’er. In class III-IV downriver races, I think it would be just as fast as a Green Boat, Stinger, or Karma UL, faster than a Dancer, Vortex, or Crossfire, and more stable than a Lazer, Excel, or Spirit. I would add 1 or 2 inches of foam to the pillars to increase its water shedding abilities. If you come across one for free to $60, It may make sense to add it to your quiver. But, it fits in a weird middle space. It’s long, too high volume to squirt, but not big enough for steeper stuff/self support. It’s impressive, but there are other old school boats out there that have better features/capabilities and are more plentiful. It currently sits at the bottom of my pile of boats…literally.

Modern Day Boat Comparison

Production C2

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In this episode we discuss Whitewater SUP with paddling legend Dan Gavere! But first #everythingisfucked…

Hat tip to Jake Risch, did you get an invite to be on the panel Louis?

Zinke seems to be at it again:

But last time zinke tried his tricks he got slapped down:

https://medium.com/westwise/congress-rebukes-the-trump-zinke-proposal-to-disembowel-park-and-conservation-budgets-a3e2cb5c0989

Is Zinke being muted after the bears ears shrinking? Has the hammer factor nation constant show of support for public lands had an affect. Even if the zinkster isn’t listening seems congress is.

Listener Mail:

From Michael Gallimore

Thank you all for addressing the fact that sometimes you really do have to “eat your vegetables.” The only people who can afford to not be political are the ones whose rights are not being threatened. If you like kayaking and recreating on public lands, this is an issue that will never go away. West Virginia is a microcosm for the rest of the country, where pristine environments and beautiful rivers are always at the risk of the extractive resource industry. Thank you Louis and Hammer Factor for always keeping us in the know.

From Covey Baack

From Rico 420

I really enjoyed listening to episode 46 and getting all of the gang’s take on the issues presented by pot in kayaking.  It was interesting to hear how some on the panel viewed the “devil’s lettuce” as a performance enhancer while others saw it as a performance inhibitor.  I feel like this disconnect is reflected across the broader community of kayakers, and that we as the Hammer Factor community have the perfect platform to solve this problem once and for all. 

I think that everyone who listens to the show should be challenged to kayak their favorite river and SUP 5 miles of flatwater into a headwind back to back two times; once sober and once balls-to-the-wall stoned. After each attempt, they will fill out a detailed questionnaire rating aspects of their experience and how the “jazz cabbage” affected them. (I’m currently speaking with several M.D.’s to gain insight for the questionnaire)  This will give us more data regarding the effects of marijuana than any other study to date and help the Hammer Factor gain traction in the medical news community (Which I’m sure will help out Grace’s pocketbook).   

Anywho, I’ve got the brilliant idea, you guys have the means to make it happen.  Lets make some magic boys. We owe it to ourselves and to the whitewater community at large.  

Sincerely,

From Anonymous

Thanks for the recent episode regarding the most recent river deaths, as a Seattle boater the loss of Sam hit us all very hard.  With that said I’d like to address something in regards to how we deal with river accidents.

As a culture/community/sport when these accidents happen we don’t do a good job of analyzing the accident.  If you look to the Mountaineering, rock climbing, backcountry ski world when there is death or even a accident that leads to injury they do a much better job of doing a forensic analysis of what happened that lead to the accident (links below). They look at the Environmental factors, decisions made, and Heuristic traps that leads to the incidents. 

I’ve noticed that when something like a death happens on the river people don’t want to talk about these kinds of details, it’s almost as if by talking about the details we’ll be speaking poorly of the dead.  That if we say out loud (for example) that the water was High, they put on at 1:00pm in December, and that they were only a group of 2 is to admit that they might have made poor decisions that lead to the incident. After Sam’s death the only time someone would mention that the water was very high (900 cfs or so) is in hushed tones and in private company.  In whitewater we learn by doing, but there is a place for thoughtful reflection in regards to decision making.

Additionally, in this age of pushing the water level up on familiar runs by admitting that it’s possible that something like high water is a risk factor it would force us to look at our own decisions. 

Not to put you all on blast, but this was even apparent in the episode.  Lot’s of talk about risk, personal choices, and the like, but not really asking the hard questions about “what are the events that lead to these things”.  If the climbing and backcountry world can do this why can’t we?

I could expand on this but for the sake of brevity I’ll stop here.

Thanks for providing quality entertainment to the whitewater world and keep up the good work, may you be blessed with many sponsors. Also I recognize my hypocrisy in wishing to remain anonymous in light of my statements.

https://avalanche.org/avalanche-accidents/

https://www.nwac.us/accidents/accident-reports/

http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/about_accidents

Anonymous

From Simon Wyndham

Okay, so weed aside, you wanted to know if there were any companies that make predominantly just WW boats without having to make cooler boxes etc. Okay, Pyranha, Bliss Stick (though God knows how they are still going!), Waka, Zet, Spade.

The bigger question is WHY boaters are so tight when it comes to buying a boat? The same people who grumble about the price of boats even though they should be higher than they are, are often the same guys who will drop $3K on a mountain or road bike without a second thought!

Tim Kennedy Corsica Review

Yet another Perception whitewater kayak review…

The Corsica!  This is the original, the big one.  The “head of the household” that included the Corsica, Corsica S, Corsica Matrix, Corsica Overflow, and Overflow X.  

The Corsica was Perception’s first true entry into the creek boat category.  At the time, it incorporated creeking specific design features such as a short length of 10’ 9”, blunt ends, and a “keyhole” cockpit.  For the first couple of years it still used plastic foot pegs on rails.  Later, the cockpit and thigh brace area was enlarged, a bulk head footbrace was added, and it was offered in the Proline version with stiffened pillars.  Many Ohiopyle area creek boaters either paddled Corsica’s, Corsica S’s, or T-Canyons as their first plastic creek boat purchase. In the early ‘90s, it was a significant shift (and risk of ridicule) for many paddlers who had always paddled fiberglass to be seen on the river in one of these tupperware “geek” boats.  But, as we explored the steeper low volume runs of the area, many came to embrace the advantages of these new plastic creek boats.

As a skinny twenty year old, I originally owned a Corsica S from 1992 to 1994.  But, this past summer, I had the chance to pick up a big Corsica.  

Perception Corsica specs (from the 1993 catalog)

Length: a nimble 10’ 9”

I’ve paddled mine a few times now.  But for this review, I’ll talk about my run down Gore Canyon at 1300 cfs last September.  (I do paddle other places.  But, Gore is practically my “backyard run”.)

Visual impression to me:

Looks longer and skinnier than modern creek boats (because it is), but not as long as a Green Boat or Stinger (because it isn’t).  Looks fast with an ever so slight keel on the stern (to help track).  Hardly any rocker whatsoever (it better be fast, otherwise it may boof like a torpedo).  A big flat bow deck that you could land aircraft (or your drone) on.

Visual impression to 20 year olds that I paddled with that day:

“Whoa…Who brought that?  Are you gonna paddle that today?  Looks huge!”  Whispers aside, “What a kook!”  “And you have a wood paddle?  How long is that?”  Thinks, “Yep, a complete kook!”

Comfort and outfitting:

Surprisingly comfortable and secure with such small thigh hooks.  Seat needed to have some foam glued in for hip pads, and I added an IR backband.  The footbraces in mine are the easily adjustable and replaceable (more on that later) Keepers style plastic foot pegs/pedals.  A standard/small (depending on brand) sprayskirt fits fine on the cockpit, but needs to be worked into the shallow rim.

On river performance:

– Super stable.  The narrow width is not noticeable, due to the big flat area under the seat.

Summary:

The Corsica is a fun old school boat that fits in between the modern creeker and modern long boats in performance.  Very versatile.  However, it’s too long for the short boat class and too slow/too flat of a deck for the podium in the long boat class.  But, as training run boat, or a boat to help make the step up to paddling a Stinger or Green Boat, it’s a good option.  It may be good for shorter multi-day trips as well.  I have a friend who is planning on paddling one on a Middle Fork self-support this summer.  He’s been paddling the Corsica forever.  He likes them so much, he has a barn full of them.  If you are on the smaller side, I recommend the Corsica S.  The Matrix is a slug (albeit a stable slug).  The Overflow is a completely different boat.

*sorry no action shots (again)

Crushing it in the Corsica!

Now for our special guest: Dan Gavere!

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Big, big show today, as we have a Very Special Episode of the Hammerfactor. Today we tackle weed and it’s role in paddlesports.

But first…viewer mail starting off with 5 questions in 30 seconds.

Today its Grace reads, Fusilli answers:

On the Viewer mail proper:

My suggestion is to cut out ALL non whitewater/kayaking/SUP/MTB related politics. Also, for truly related political topics, try and limit it to an on point and succinct segment that takes much less time in the show. Or, even better, just make it a separate podcast for politics so those who want to hear it can subscribe. I realize that it is easy to get lulled into a sense that (a) everyone agrees with you on every topic, and (b) that your listeners want to hear more politics than we are already bombarded with from tens of thousands of other outlets every day. I mean, talking shit about the NRA?!? WTF does that have to do with kayaking?

Tom Sheburne writes with some horseshit calling me Donald Trump Jr again. and clarifies that he still owns Shredready, but doing exactly none of the work. Oh, wait- he’s doing the “R and D”. Sorry. He talked the CKS crew into doing all of the heavy lifting. In any case, who does Grace contact about his T-Dub royalty check?

And Ryan Havner Chimes in with his thoughts on my thoughts on the Asheville Citizen Times:

I need to rant at John Weld for his uninformed digs at the local Asheville Citizen-Times in last week’s episode on risk. I am the rare 30-something with an actual hard copy newspaper subscription…as an informed reader I think his comments are off the mark.

He continues

The article provides a few perspectives on the risks from folks like Asheville’s own Leland Davis and Juliet Kastorff from Endless River Adventures and ends with a quote from Nick Williams that might best sum up the tone:

When asked if he believes boating should be restricted on the Cheoah, Williams said, “Hell no. None of the paddling community or Maria’s friends or family would even contemplate that paddling the Cheoah should be limited. That freedom shouldn’t be limited.”

Summing it up, he says:

Mr. Weld’s reactionary commentary to a headline does a disservice to their reporting and unfairly characterizes the Citizen-Times as a hippy/podunk waste of time. I encourage you to read the article. You just spent an entire episode focused on risk in paddling; why is it unreasonable for a newspaper to consider the same thing?

Local journalism is a dying industry, and we are fortunate in Asheville to have a team of folks that share many of the values of the outdoor enthusiasts who live here…That’s my two cents. You can find me sipping my coffee and reading my paper Wednesday and Sunday mornings in Candler.

On to the good emails:

Bryan Tooley writes in to defend the low offset:

Can’t agree more about the paddle offset. I always felt the offset should match the angle of the shaft while taking a forward stroke. If the offset matches the shaft angle, the control hand can provide power in a neutral position. These low angle offsets forces the control hand into a position that puts a high stress on the wrist. Probably old info to

you guys. Combine the low offset with the close grippers and its enough to pul your hair out.

Kerry in Revelstoke wants a small braap:

I have a Braaap and love it but feel like I’m missing out on some of the performance that larger guys get out of it. A Braaap for the 150lb and below group is definitely needed. So please call out Shane or Pat about it on the show.

Doesn’t Pyranha already have a small ripper???!! hell yeah! A few more outburst notes from the Rughs:

The Sawblade Outbursts are in fact the superior boat. If you line up 10 Outbursts side by side, you will find that each one is different which led me to my theories about different colors of plastic having different shrinkage rates (which the Hammer Factor confirmed on an earlier episode). The older, sawblade boats are made of cross-linked plastic and for whatever reason, they have a lot more rocker. It could be that there were multiple molds made, but I think that they made different cooling molds which would effect the rocker.

Speaking of outbursts, Hammer Factors in-house historian Tim Kennedy reviewed the outburst this week:

My initial interest/attraction to the Outburst

Big/pushy water performance (from my recollection of paddling it on Gore at 2800 cfs… 22 years ago)

– Fast and stable! Handled the left boof at the top of Gore rapid with no issues.

Technical/low volume water performance (from paddling the Numbers at 700 cfs last summer)

– Soft forgiving edges don’t seem to hinder the ability to carve in and out of eddies in a slalomy style.

– Harder to get the stern down when squirtin’. You need a strong deep eddy line or a lot of cheeseburgers. You’re not gonna splat it by slamming the underside of the bow onto

the face of the rock how you kids like to do nowadays. Learn to splat/squirt with a pry stroke (choke up on the paddle, if ya need to).

Other points to note

– Put a backband in it.

Nathan Polley, professional ecologist, writes to justify Grace’s rant on the hating the environment:

I am officially recommending a “May affect, not likely to adversely affect” call for your video concerning the wild and scenic status of the Nolichucky with concern to the eastern hellbender. That’s official legal jargon for “tell that environmentalist to calm their shit.” Geltman should back me up. The real danger to the eastern hellbender is development which leads to the build up of silt in streams and the destruction of their habitat. Wild and scenic status for the Nolichucky would be a net positive and a massive win for the species.

Stay yeasted I guess.

Nathan

We also got a bunch of emails on risk, new forms of slalom races, as well as “race in kayaking” which we’re going to kick down to next week to address.

Wow. OK we’re running wayyy late, but lets bring in our guest today to discuss, well, the white elephant in the room. Weed and kayaking.

DAVE FUSILLI

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Good day everybody we have a packed show lined up for you today. We get to the bottom of the ‘instafire’ post from Pat Keller calling out Corey Sheehan for pulling the foam out of his life jacket. From there we have a great interview with US Olympian, Ashley Nee, giving us the inside scoop on the USOC. Of course we have some great listener mail, rants and raves and an outstanding review of the Perception Slasher. Enjoy and have a great day!

Slasher Review:

On river performance

Well, instead of easing into C1ing on a class II stretch, I decided to hop in it on Brown’s Canyon, a class III stretch on the Arkansas River, at about 700cfs.

Fit – The outfitting and saddle were very comfortable (at first) and easily adjusted for a secure fit in the boat. The sprayskirt was a bit of a struggle to get on the cockpit due to it’s small size and the neoprene drying out and degrading over the years. But, with some effort and stretching (tearing?) of the fabric, I got it on the rim. I grabbed my short (58”) Carlisle raft paddle and hit the water.

Flat water performance – Really stable, considering the edges and high seating position inherent in this slalom inspired C1. I was able to get amazing power out of a forward stroke (J stroke), and the boat glided quite swiftly down the river. After about a mile on the water, I was getting the hang of controlling the boat with an onside bow draw/forward stroke combo, and some J stroking, and sweeps. My knees and ankles were getting a bit uncomfortable, but I hear that’s common with C1ers.

Class I – II performance – With my confidence building, I was able to paddle efficiently through small wave trains, with stability afforded by solid forward leaning powerful strokes. I soon looked proficient eddying out and peeling out from river right eddies. Cross bow eddying out was a bit more difficult, probably due to the length of the crappy paddle that I had, and me being used to paddling with two blades. I even pulled off a few flat water rolls in a big deep eddy, under the watchful eye of a friend “spotting” me, incase I got into trouble. However, after a few miles paddling and some rolls, there was about 5-10 gallons of water in the boat. The hull looked to be in immaculate condition, maybe I missed a fine crack somewhere. Anyways, I got out and dumped/sponged the boat, which was a welcome relief to my numbed knees and ankles.

Class III performance – As the rapids picked up in Brown’s Canyon at Canyon Doors/Pinball, I was able to get a feel for performance characteristics of the edges on this slalom inspired design. A seasoned (capable) C1er would love how the edges help the boat carve across the current and hook in to eddies when entering from swift water. For me, it was frightening! Every eddy line now became a horrible monster reaching out to grab that edge and flip me over. I frantically avoided eddies, rocks, and small pillows at all costs. Just get me into the safety and serenity of the pool at the bottom! We soon came to Zoom Flume, the biggest class III rapid on the run. It’s a relatively steep drop with some medium sized curlers and waves and a big rock at the bottom. Earlier, I had a feeling that if I was going go upside down on Brown’s, it would be Zoom Flume. Now, after feeling I may go upside down in any rapid with rocks and eddies, I knew I was going to flip in Zoom Flume. Sure enough, I did. I flipped on my offside (how do you brace on the offside?), carped three rolls, and swam. Rolling in shallow rapids with your ass and entire upper body hanging four feet out of the cockpit is difficult! I swam to shore, allowed the blood flow and feeling to get back to my feet and got back in the boat (on the saddle?). I continued on downstream. Every rapid (class III) seemed like a fight for survival. But, now I had the confidence knowing how quickly you can exit a C1, when your legs are underneath you and not encapsulated in the bow of the boat. I was actually grateful that the boat kept taking on water. This allowed me to stop, get out, dump water, and get feeling back into the lower half of my legs. They were no longer numb…my knees and ankles were now aching with searing pain! I finally made it to the takeout without any further mishaps. After sitting at the water’s edge for 20 minutes to allow life and feeling to return to my feet, I limped to the cooler and drank my bootie beer…Do C1ers only have to drink 1/2 a bootie beer, because of the “1/2 a paddle…” thing?

Overall impression

In the hands of a more skilled (capable) canoeist, the Perception Slasher would be a joy to paddle. It’s C1 slalom boat-like design elements would make it incredibly fast and responsive compared to today’s C1s (which to my knowledge are now just kayaks with different seats, paddled by a kneeling guy with one blade). I’d bet that you could even stern squirt/pivot turn the slicey demon. For me, it was an edgy, uncomfortable nightmare, akin to trying to paddle the river while kneeling on top of one of those plastic cafeteria tables, with a raft paddle.

All in all, it was a challenging and painful, but enjoyable learning experience. I’ll keep the boat, so that I have something to do while my girlfriend paddles her SUP on the Upper Colorado.

Dane Jackson surfs behind ski boats: https://www.facebook.com/groups/120559614677761/permalink/1717771914956515/

Article on the USOC that Ashley Nee discusses: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/the-olympic-flame-has-been-extinguished-the-usoc-should-be-next/2018/02/26/a00648ca-1b05-11e8-9de1-147dd2df3829_story.html?utm_term=.8d5154c3107c