Utilizing Curlers...

I've always thought of kayaking as being a sport in which you try to achieve synchrony with the river, not fight against it. I think that the best paddlers are able to put in very little effort to get their boat where it needs to go. This is true even in the most massive, convoluted, class VI rapid.

One tool that I've always found very useful for my own paddling is learning how to interact with curlers. For the purpose of this discussion I'm going to include pillows as well, because they require essentially the same skills.

So there are two basic strategies when faced with a large curler or pillow in a rapid. You need to decide whether you want to go through it and continue on your course, or go with it and use it to move laterally across the river. Good examples of rapids where you want to go through the curler are:
-Notch in Gorilla (Green)
-Left side Sunshine (Green)
-Itanda (Nile)
-Coliseum (Ottawa)
-Rapid #9 (Zambezi)

Rapids where you go with the curler include:
-Big Boy (Raven Fork)
-Energizer (Toxaway)
-Mike Tyson's (Raven Fork)
-Right side Sunshine (Green)

Trying to roll with the river's power on the Toxaway.

Credit: Fergus Coffey

So a background in playboating certainly helps with using curlers to your advantage. When you connect with a curler, you're essentially trying to become as easily manipulated as possible... i.e. surf the curler where you want to go. On big rivers you can sometimes surf 50 feet across the river to avoid a potential hazard or catch an eddy. Here are the steps you should take to initiate the surf:

1) Travel the speed of the water, don't accelerate towards it
2) Align your boat's angle with the angle of the curler
3) Drop downstream edge and lean into the curler... it will expose your deck to the foam and catch you
4) Twist your torso and upper body away from the feature. Place a powerful forward stroke on the downstream side. You will have kinetic energy in your wound-up torso, and you unwind that when you hit the curler. Your stroke will accelerate you across the face of it and in your desired direction.
5) If you want to abort your curler surf at a certain point simply drop your body downstream and use your edge to drag you off with a powerful stroke

Curler moves are especially dynamic with the big boats.

Credit: Ashley Woodring


When there is a curler that you want to punch through, for example one that leads into a massive hole, there are a series of very different steps to use. Here are the general guidelines for this:

1) Get some speed towards it
2) Angle your boat perpendicular to it. This is something people have trouble with... don't worry about your angle with the river, just worry about hitting the curler perfectly square.
3) Place that last powerful stroke on the opposite side from the curler.
4) Edge your boat slightly away from the curler.
5) Pull on that powerful stroke as you hit the feature, and lean just a bit back to facilitate that "scoop" as your boat crests up and over it.
6) Snap back into that aggressive front seat position and get ready for what's next!

Boofing through the infamous Notch curler during Green Race.

Credit: Adam Miles

I hope that helps a bit with conceptualizing an important skill. Happy holidays all and hope to see you on the river!

Chris Gragtmans