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I learned the value of a down and across ferry this year- after eating shit at Skull at 18K. When the river is really hauling, you'll make better progress by working with the current, not fighting it. I needed to make a 135 degree pivot and row like hell- but I tried to back-ferry and the power of the current overwhelmed me and pulled my back ferrying ass right into the meat. Swim Team!

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Getting back to the OP's query, I have been using a trailer frame with my cat on multi-day trips. I had DRE make one with a foot bar and I run it at the front of the boat. When it's all rigged it cheats the main frame back and the oar towers are close to center. I guess it's more of a "leader" frame.
 
Discussion starter · #23 ·
Thanks for all the responses, informative and entertaining. I have always had mine dead center, probably leave 'em there. May experiment with moving them forward a foot or so - possibly a little quicker turning when pointed downstream and pushing, without really effecting pulling and spinning.


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Is this the thread where the pig boaters who avoid whitecaps and bridge pylons on class II all day tell the class IV Ferrari drivers they are doing it wrong?

Sweet, sweet forward momentum....
Funny!
What i learned rowing was what I learned.
I'm not here to tell anyone they're doing it wrong, only to share what I learned that worked for me.
You can push a lightly loaded cat, and most of the time you HAVE to push it, cause otherwise the damn thing, or the river GOD will bite you right in the ass.
Trying to push a pig boat is kind of like trying to push your busted truck up Eisenhower; lots of grunting and cussing, but not much movement.

The secret in all cases is working with the current to get where you want to get; whether a paddle boat of little old ladies in tennis shoes, a "Ferrari kayak" or a big fat pig loaded up like Parris Hilton's luggage cart.

In the end, no matter how big and strong and GODLY you are as a boatman, you ain't more powerful than the river. Ever.

In my humble opinion, the real skill comes in getting it right. You know, keeping the flat side down. All the rest is pretty much for show.

And as my betters often pointed out to me;
beware wet boatmen and skinny cooks.
 
Funny!
3) If you are pushing more than pulling you're doing it wrong.
Funny!
What i learned rowing was what I learned. I'm not here to tell anyone they're doing it wrong......
Hmmmmmm?!? The problem with blanket, absolute statements is that someone might read them and believe it. I get that is your experience, but I have run into people who believe the crap that gets posted here without questioning.

And as to back ferry. Yes I understand the concept and find that a lot of times it just means more work fighting the river. Yes, when you have to pick your way through a boulder garden it slows things down and that can be good. And I have run plenty of things stern first pulling like crazy with a downstream ferry to make the inside or whatever. When you get tired of getting worked and your hands start to hurt then you try different things. It works for me but one does have to read the river far ahead. Not just point at sometihing and pull like hell. And that has it's own problem in that pulling away from the obstacle often puts you inline with the current and you may need more angle to change that line. Really try it and think about it.

Telling a rafter that they should only use a pull stroke is as ridiculous to me as telling a kayaker to only use a right brace. Just one of many to get you where you want.


You can push a lightly loaded cat, and most of the time you HAVE to push it, cause otherwise the damn thing, or the river GOD will bite you right in the ass.
Trying to push a pig boat is kind of like trying to push your busted truck up Eisenhower; lots of grunting and cussing, but not much movement.
And since I run a 17 foot Maravia with four dry boxes usually with kitchen, large cooler and 70 lbs of camera gear in addition to my personal bar which fills one side box and a boom box with extra 12 volt battery this is not a lightly loaded cat. The push stroke does wonders for your abs. I have used mine so much I grew a keg.....
 
My SD Puma has the oars pretty much center. My cat I preferred to row with me in the center. Our new Expedition Cat has a trailer frame that we rigged as a leader frame on the Grand, which put oars pretty much center, but without it (i.e. lighter) we would be rowing a fair bit forward. We will be testing that setup over Labor Day.

When I was a guide (Lower Animas) there was always pressure to make time so that the guides could have lunch, or have a quick break before the next trip. As the water came down this was best accomplished by pushing so that the sleeper rocks that needed to be avoided were easily seen. I also think the passengers are more comfortable looking downstream.

Momentum is my friend, so long as it is in the right direction. I find it easier to maintain the right direction and T things up when looking downstream (pushing). I kind of suck at the downstream pulling ferry :oops:.
 
Schutzie thinks you are just being silly now.

I never said "only use a pull stroke"

I said, "if you're pushing more than pulling you're doing it wrong".
In reference to a pig boat, I'd love someone to tell me I'm wrong.
In fact, I'd love to see the pig boat guide that was successful at pushing his rig much at all.

Maybe our problem is what we define as Pig boat........
"17 foot Maravia with four dry boxes usually with kitchen, large cooler and 70 lbs of camera gear in addition to my personal bar which fills one side box and a boom box with extra 12 volt battery"

Does not qualify in my book as a pig boat. Lightly loaded touring rig maybe, but not a pig boat.;)

But regardless, I learned, and still maintain, that a pull stroke is more powerful and in most cases, more useful than a push stroke.

This is not to say a push is to be avoided always. A push stroke has it's place. It's not as powerful, so it takes more to accomplish something but still has a place.

Now, shall we move onto your problem with my "blanket statement"

You are not more powerful than the river. Ever.

Or, shall we continue this increasingly useless discussion?
 
Wrong is generally a matter of perspective.

Sorry Schutzie while you don't literally say never to push, you sure do STRONGLY imply that you shouldn't. Lots of people push more than they pull, they are NOT doing it wrong. So your generalized statement is "that pushing more than pulling is WRONG", not "you're never stronger than the river, ever". Most of your stories are similar; Big boats in big water and you profess to go with the flow let the river do the work...I understand that I'm generally that way too. It just simply doesn't work that way as often on smaller rivers, you find the need to move in various directions with out the time to spin to your strongest stroke. So in reality most folks find themselves pushing as much as pulling and surprisingly they get down the river safely and efficiently.

Shutzie, be wary of your blanket statements as carvedog indicated they typically say more than you obviously realize.
 
Being able to reconfigure the cockpit position in the boat is quite a luxury. It occurs to me that it is something you only seem to see cats experimenting with. Oval boat frames are simpler, you should see more owners doing mods. Head scratcher.

Oval boat owners less likely to think outside the box as a group?
 
I don't want to start another pissing match with you Osseous, but I don't think anyone here has said that pushing is as strong as pulling, just that it is frequently necessary, much more so than Shutzie is professing. That is what I'm arguing for. When I need power I want to be set up to pull, but committing your boat full on to a pull all the time is going to get you in trouble. I've learned that the hard way...

Ever seen a crew team going forward?

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Being able to reconfigure the cockpit position in the boat is quite a luxury. It occurs to me that it is something you only seem to see cats experimenting with. Oval boat frames are simpler, you should see more owners doing mods. Head scratcher.

Oval boat owners less likely to think outside the box as a group?
I move my cockpit around a lot. It just depends on the cargo. How many fisherman in the boat? How many floor platforms do I want to run? Is the river bony? Do I want my anchor? How often do I want to open the main cooler? So on and so forth. The modular frames are awesome for that.
 
I don't change the whole frame around a lot but I can row from either my rowers seat or the cooler. My locks are fairly close to the middle of the captains bay so I can go either way. I haven't tried it in the heat of the moment yet and I'm not sure I won't think of it until I force myself to try it more. But as for Osseous issue above I wonder if I couldn't have switched seats, 45 degree pivot and been pulling downstream and away from the problem (obviously I don't know the whole situation but I can envision a few places where that might work if I screwed up above). I'm going to have to keep that in mind and play with it.

I can also stand and row which I like, but it's not second nature yet so I don't get as much power unless I'm really thinking about my oar stroke.

I just work on balancing the boat, my locks are center but on overnighters I have two coolers and 3 people up front to counter balance me, the dry box and the gear pile... It sure feels like I'm balanced the way I want (slightly front heavy if possible).
 
As far as rowing goes, I think there is a time to pull and a time to push.

For me, at least 90 percent of the time I push. And I do my best not to have to push very hard. For the situations where I miscalculated or need to do a stern downstream ferry or pull away from a hazard, the answer is a double oar spin to do the pull off the danger move.

When I first started rowing, all my buds did the point the bow and pull off the danger deal and so did I. Since we all did it, progress down river was the same.

Then as I progressed and made my first Middle Fork float, a very experienced oarsman observed that one reason I was so tired at day's end was I rowed about twice as much as he did. Never forget that time when the light bulb flashed on. He was also always out front of the group just coasting along. I began to think about getting boat and current in sync, just did not understand all the tricks of the trade.

Then I went to guide school out in Oregon where the big boys and girls row the big stuff.

Yepper, the real learning came when my turn to row the big 18 ft loaded to the max gear boat came along.

I knew about momentum but it really came home to me when the instructor lounging in the bow observed that if I wanted to make it to camp before dark I should stay out of eddies along the way and read the current (even in the flats).

He told me to find current going the way I wanted to go, get into and stay with that current. Keep the boat aligned so the momentum worked to increase speed and angle. Also that the best route down stream was not always in a straight line.

Next he showed me how to anticipate and make small correction oar strokes to work with the raft and the current. Not to wait till I got off line and had to do the back breaking pull strokes.

I learned that by watching my momentum, finding and staying in the current that worked for me, making small corrective push strokes early in the game and facing down stream so I could see and follow that current - that once I got ole Biscuit going her weight kept her going even in the boils and funny water. Every once and a while my now napping instructor would rise up and say "spin around to the right now!" just in case I screwed up and had to pull, he wanted me well trained in the spin move.

Along the way he taught me how to get ole Biscuit going down stream stern first and to tuck that stern into a eddy and spin her in her length to get by tightly spaced rocks where it looked like zero ways to get by.

I find by using these techniques and looking down stream, I rarely have to really push hard and if I do on rare spots on the river, need to pull then the double oar spin move is the way to go for a few pull strokes then double oar spin back to my down stream facing position.

My best rowing stroke is to have both oars tucked under my legs leaving my hands free to hold a beverage of choice while the current speeds my raft down river.

By using these techniques I am usually one of the faster boats in the group and do the least work.

There is a lot of technique things that make rowing even a pig boat easier and I feel the real good advice is to find out all the things you can about rowing and do what works for you, your raft and the river you are on.

Even tho I live in the flat lands, I grew up boating the steeps up and down the appalachian streams, moved out here and found UT-NM-AZ-CO-ID in rafts. The time I spent getting trained by those folks out in Oregon is the stuff that changed me from a pull off the danger all the time oarsman to a "find current going where you want go to forward facing oarsman who was taught how to dance with the river not fight it"

life is good and any time spent on a river is good time. Just better when you can see where you are going not where you have been.

flame on!
 
Now that's how you offer advice! Great piece there Okieboater. My one comment is its not always desirable to be the first one down so I use those eddies, boils, etc. to slow down while fishing. Of course it's all about what your into for each trip. But when making time, follow the thalweg, when dragging your feat, eddy (slow-water) hop. I got really good at slithering down the last day of the Smith employing many of your techniques.

What I relate to most is: "My best rowing stroke is to have both oars tucked under my legs leaving my hands free to hold a beverage of choice while the current speeds my raft down river." I'd modify the last bit to say "while the current drags me along at my preferred pace"... since you know I might want to fish while holding one of those beverages.
 
"so I use those eddies, boils, etc. to slow down while fishing. Of course it's all about what your into for each trip" as posted by elkhaven.

Agree with the above.

Remember I was trained to row by men and women who all summer long make a Rogue or similar river trip once a week. These folks are interested in either giving their custies a scenic ride complete with story telling along the way or getting the gear boat down to the next camp with the least expenditure of muscle power at speed.

They have by experiencing it over and over, figured out how things work.

Been blessed to make a number of Middle Fork and similar beautiful Idaho / Montana trout streams floats. I see those grizzled ole fishing guides (most often with a big cowboy hat) holding their drift boats in perfect balance while the sport casts into a spot. Or in the middle of a rapid, they just seem to dance down slowly hitting all the fishy hiding places along the way.

These oarsman like the same area's back country pilots are a special breed, few and far between and to be admired for their skill set and knowledge of the river or air space they work in. Sigh, to us flatland boaters they call it "work" - we just get to drive, experience heaven for a week or so, then it's back to rolling hills and dodging tornadoes in the spring!!!

Life is indeed good along the River, no matter where it is located.
 
I push a lot of the time- and into every wave I can- but when I need power, it's all pulling strokes.

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When I need power it's often because I misread the river and then have to fight the current extra hard to get where I should have been naturally with a few push strokes….:rolleyes:
 
When I need power it's often because I misread the river and then have to fight the current extra hard to get where I should have been naturally with a few push strokes….:rolleyes:
Except for every single time you have offset obstacles that do not allow you to take a single line. Do you maintain that strategy through a rock garden?
 
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