I used to have playboats - but I have big feet for a guy my size and at some point I realized that by virtue of not living near any consistent play spots I was a) always going to suck at playboating b) tired of waiting in an eddy for 15 minutes watching people who didn't suck at playboating crank out 100 flat spins only to wash off after about 11 seconds when it was my turn to hit the wave and c) that the discomfort of being crammed in a tiny-ass boat for the opportunity to do things that I'd never be good at and hardly ever spent any time on the river doing didn't make any sense. That was 10 years ago and I've never missed having a playboat - although I'd pick one up again if a whitewater park magically materialized within 45 minutes of my house.

Ive only got a wavesport bigez, but ive been trying! Been out to the naselle myself! thats a stout couple of waves!
Most of the "play boaters" are now club boaters and spend more time working on moves in the pool than the river...
It would be pretty cool to have folks to learn from. Especially with such a close proximity to the tilton myself...

To each their own...ones boating preferences evolve with time and space. What's important to me is that I continue to boat and accumulate experiences and friendships.

I started boating on SE rivers 17 years ago and quickly was creeking 100% of the time. This was also what seemed to be the peak of creek racing so mad-bombing was the norm. It took me too many years to realize that as my creeking resume progressed, my upside down skills digressed.

Fast forward in time and to the promised land of boating, I seek to be a more well-rounded kayaker. My local run is class 3 and that's a huge part of it but I use it as an excuse to downriver playboat & train so I am poised to run harder whitewater.

Watching you squirt your way down the lower Matheny with the queets at 25+k inspires me to spend less time pointed downriver forward-stroking......bring on the bigwater!



Edited by AdamG - 21 Feb 2017 at 12:45pm

Don't you think that to some extent the decrease in popularity is that very few companies are making the style of playboat you are describing? Everyone still makes a very small football shaped boat that is good for big tricks and big waves, but there isn't much to choose from for a boat that can easily surf small waves and cartwheel/squirt/etc.

A buddy and I took a trip over to the MM (my first time on it) Saturday and he commented how surprised he was at the number of creekboats and river runners were out there. I thought the MM was a great place for a playboat, but if it was a local run of mine I'd take my creekboat out on it as well to work on my skills in that boat as well.

As a Wenatchee local I'm really jealous of the Sky / MM / Green. You can have a lot of fun in both a playboat and a creekboat/river runner on the exact same section of whitewater. I get over it pretty fast when I'm doing after work trinity sessions with at most two other paddlers.

I have never boated on the east coast, I hear some people even still squirt boat and C1 there. But with a much bigger boating community your bound to have more playboaters and the warm probably helps.
Honestly cold is not an issue on most days of winter playboating. Most of the time I need to roll to cool off Im playing so hard. If I take a creek boat down the same run I'm hardly getting heated. I have seen groups split up because the creekboats sitting in the eddy watching us play get cold, while we surf our selves silly and break a sweet. It's all relative and let's face it kayaking is not about being in the lap of luxury. You have to be willing to put up with some hardships no matter what kind of boat you are in. That's why most of the population would never even touch a kayak.

Chris I have a centrifuge

RPMMAX

I really love playboating but the play here is worse than everywhere else I've paddled that actually has whitewater (i.e. mountain states all over the US except for the NE). Too many boulders, not enough bedrock, and it's cold. Yeah, the Wenatchee is great and Paradise is one of the best cartwheel holes of all time (but it's so cold and the swirlies are hard for newer boaters).

I agree that not playboating affects people's skills negatively--there are a lot more swims here than anywhere else I've boated as well (and sometimes they are my swims!), and people's ferries often look super shakey, etc.. But people are also safer in creekboats. I ran a lot of runs in a ProZone and an S6 that are kind of sievy messes--Gore in CO and Little River Canyon in AL come to mind as well as a lot of creeks in AR and the SE, and sometimes I got my ass kicked, powershaded ad infinitum, etc. I never got pinned but it definitely happened, a lot. In creek boats, people get worked less and pinned *way* less.

I also think that creek boats have gotten a lot more fun, except on really big water (and the newest flat-hulled creek boats look like they'd be great there). It used to suck to turn a creek boat, and they were heavy, hard to boof, couldn't surf, etc. A lot of the late 90s to mid 2000s creek boats were terrible kayaks. There were some exceptions (I love my Diablo even though it can't always turn fast enough to get to Plan B if necessary) but slicey playboats did offer a superior kayaking experience, all in all.

I think the Nomad changed all that. Creek boats got awesome. It became really easy to charge through stuff, autoboof rocks and holes, catch eddies, etc., in a fast, stable and predictable boat.

At the same time, playboating went to big wave stuff dominated by 15 year olds, which is super fun to watch but too inaccessible for the average kayaker. And then the boats went that way too, and got a lot worse for general kayaking. And because no one but middle age guys splatwheel in slicey boats, no one buys slicey boats to splatwheel in except middle age guys, and then no one else realizes just how damn fun it is.

And there is the problem, I guess--not enough people know how fun it is to throw down on an eddyline on a warm sunny day, or have long-term kayaking goals that don't involve being terrified. Playboating is great for being able to turn up the skill and the fear independently (you can do either, both or neither as you like) while still getting an amazing workout and becoming a better kayaker.

haven't been lucky enough to get up to the southern green with the steep price on that rec permit. But heard about your guys trip on Facebook. Been figuring out how to paddle from near the headwaters to the toutle this spring. Such a beautiful river, hopefully they stop that copper mine.

Any gems your willing to share besides the tilton and the naselle?

That is definitely a great statement, and so true. Long term goals are part of what kayaking is about. It took me three years of trying to bow stall on every eddy line I crossed before it finally clicked. I was both happy and frustrated, I finally got it! But why did it take me so long. Haha
Being terrified used to get me buzzed, now it just makes me sick to my stomach lol

I'm glad this is being discussed! Brings back memories of how I started. In a first gen Jackson 2fun that was so small and so squirrely that you had that steep learning curve with edges and keeping forward and rolling a lot. It was great, then creek boat took over and playboat became springtime on the wenatchee or while I lived in Montreal it was after work park and surf.

But there is hope! Can't begin to say how much I love my Braaap, plays and runs class 5. I sold my creeker and haven't regretted a thing! And it looks like companies are catching on and bringing back some old school designs. Braaap, mullet, axiom, antix, loki are all current models aimed at downriver play which is awesome!

The main thing i'm stoked about this discussion is the idea of creekboat for creeks playboat for everything else. Getting beat down and cartwheeling in a class 3 or 4 hole regularly instead of a class 5 when its not preferred. As this is my current dilemma, I had a bomber roll back in the playboat everything days and that made my creeking game surge. Couple years of seldom flips and charging hard brought on confidence. Then the roll gets rusty and I start swimming more often and confidence goes down. Hard to take a step back when pursuing progression, but the playboat everything else is more like a step sideways in the right direction. Its great training and we don't even have to call it training, its playing!

I've had this mindset before, but I called it Ridiculous. Don't know why I forgot about that, glad its come back to light. Taking the Mobius out tomorrow!

Next time the Tilton is around 2500 it would be awesome to go with a crew that wanted to spend and hour or more at surf city. At that flow wave 1, 2 and 3 are amazing. I like stopping at the island and surfing wave one for a while, getting out, chillen ext. It's eddy service if your quick. Then to the second wave(cliff eddy wave) for as many rides as you can make it back to the eddy for. Then to the last wave for chillen on the beach and walking up for surfs. After that are many more catch on the fly waves at that flow. If it's looken good I'll make a post. Playboat for life! Lol