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| Unknown Paddler making his way Right of the Thing! |
Tallulah fest
Paddling with a ton of buddies from all over the
world on a great river is always a blast, especially when there is a
couple fresh boats from
Wave Sport to test out. Bryan Kirk, Chris Wing and I set out on day two of
Tallulah Fest,
with a second generation Recon ( the new creek boat ), an Ethos ( the
new cross over boat ), and a Project X. Needless to say the quiver was
loaded and it was about time to test out some new Boats.
Walking
down the immense stair case to the put in, Bryan, Chris, and I were
hounded with questions, What boat is that? How big is it? When is it
going to come out? I want one!
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| Bryan Kirk launching the new Recon Creek Boat |
I started in the Ethos cross over boat, which was a
quickly produced prototype boat. The out fitting felt great, and the
shape looked good; the only problem was the quick activating drop down
skeg didn't have a control. A few strips of duck tape later and I was
feeling confident that the skeg wasn't going to self deploy half way
down Oceana... I was wrong.
Upon sliding off the put in
stairs into the river I felt a very odd sensation, the back of the boat
wouldn't go anywhere. The duck tape had removed itself and the skeg
that is supposed to lower a few inches into the water, was submersed 18
inches. The thought of hiking the boat to the top of the stairs was
ridiculous. After a quick deliberation Bryan Kirk and I decided to shove
the skeg back up into the boat and to break little branches off on both
sides of it. The thought was that we could wedge the Skeg back up and
into the boat. I was pretty sure this plan wasn't going to work, but to
my surprise, the little sticks held way better then the Duck tape. The
Skeg stayed up, and I got to paddle the huge Ethos Cross Over boat down
the Tallulah gorge.
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| Unknown Paddler in a Dagger Green Boat entering the THING |
Paddling down, we took the time to check out each
others boats and give some great feedback that will certainly be used in
the final products.
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| Unknown Kayaker blasting past the Thing on Oceana |
The Recon
This boat is going to be amazing, the tiered rail on
the back of the boat allows it to aggressively carve. The nose is soft
with plenty of rocker to get up and over anything in it's path. The best
part is there is plans for a 90ish gallon model that is going to be
great for self support, the big guys out there, or any one that love to
float supper high.
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| Bryan Kirk with a prototype Recon at the base of Tallulah falls |
The Ethos
I almost hate to call this a Cross Over boat, except
for the fact that it has a drop down skeg. I truly could paddle this
down most class 5 and it will be an exceptional 5- muti-day self support
boat. I am already dreaming of a solo self support Grand Canyon trip.
Check out what Wave Sport has to say about the
Ethos, along with some other video of it charging down Tallulah Geoge
here.
Most
importantly well at the Tallulah check out the rowdy rope swing, it's
right before the take out on the right. This swing is impressive!
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| Another adventure brought to you by Chris Baer |
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