Last week we went back to the John Day River, this time on one of the upper sections for some R&D in the new 14 foot solo. I experimented with different seat positions, different float bag configurations, and different gear loads.
The first day we parked next to a swift water section with plenty of rocks and I ran the same little obstacle course over and over to try to get a sense of how different configurations affected performance.
In hindsight this wasn’t as useful as I’d hoped because I have literally zero solo swift water canoe experience, but I did gain a few insights. Here you can see my skill progression from my very first eddy turn to my last one that day.
Compared to the whitewater kayaks I’m used to it felt pretty mushy at first, but once I learned to trust the boat and really throw my weight around the turns got a bit crispier. I felt stable on the seat but paddle mostly on my knees for better control.
I’m using a pretty anemic paddle for this sort of thing because my shoulders matter more to me than maximum power these days.
As you would expect the unloaded boat was a bit more nimble, but it was also surprisingly controllable with my normal 35 lb week-long camping load. Also as you would expect, having the seat forward with the load directly behind me is a little better than it sitting in front of my feet.
In the next videos I’ll share some self rescue practice and some river running footage. Please let me know what you think of the longer video? I’ve only done this once before and I decided against it because it loaded so poorly on my phone, but I’d really like to share some of these longer clips. How is this experience for you? How does it load on your phone? Would you rather I just stick to the normal one minute format? Thanks!
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