Green Boatin'

Bald Rock Canyon

I have been paddling the Green boat for a few years now and every year I fall more and more in love with this boat! While this boat was designed for racing I find it to be a great everyday boat. Around the world and especially in Cali you don’t see many green boats on the river. I think that should change. Every year now I have been trying to get my green boat out on more and more new runs. Here in Cali so far I have taken it down Cherry Creek, South Yuba, South American, San Joaquin, North Feather, and most recently the Bald Rock run of the Middle Feather. It’s such a great feeling going down these runs in the green boat now. The Nomad is always fun but there is new excitement taking a boat like the Green down runs you have been on before and for the first time.

I think that the term long boat has gotten a bad name. The long boats our forefathers paddled were definitely fast but they were lacking the new designs and outfitting that we all love and enjoy today. The Green boat takes that pride of being long and fast and combines it with an amazing design. The long boats of the past are before my time so it is with great pride that I paddle a long boat that I believe the paddlers of the past would have loved to have in place of their old craft.

There are challenges to paddling a longer boat but I think that you gain many advantages over small boats at the same time. I have found that I have many cleaner lines in my Green boat in certain rapids over my Nomad. For example, there’s this boof on the South Yuba that requires getting up on a rock shelf and fading off to the left. In the Nomad you land somewhat in the hole and have to hold a strong brace to stay upright but in the Green you can gain so much speed that you launch completely over the hole. It’s these little things that I have come to appreciate about paddling a faster higher volume boat. I encourage more to leave the creek boat or what ever little thing you paddle at home and once in a while go get you some GREEN boat.

South Yuba