A little ice and I still don't have power.

Here are a few shots from Thursday. We had a semi epic ice storm here in Western North Carolina. There were trees down everywhere and power out all over our area and Upstate South Carolina. Evidently there were close to a half million people out of power in the area. We just got power here at LL headquarters Sunday, but I still don't have power at my house. Luckily the woodstove and water are still running. So we are living a little more basic these days.
Shane

Bozo on the Green: 200%

So you all know the new team member. He hadn't done much creeking in the southeast so he was super stoked to get a run in on the Green and what better time than when we have a nice juicy level. It was 200%. We had a great safety crew. Andrew Holcombe, Nate Elliot, Amos, Johnnie "Utah" and myself were watching out for Bozo and Daniel Dela, and Mefford were out getting the shots.


First off this is documentation of the first complete descent of the Green at 200% by an inflatable personality
There was one problem though, Bozo is HOLE BAIT. For starters he doesn't use his hands much less a paddle. Secondly he just goes where ever the hell he wants to. Hes not used to the power of the Green at 200%, so we had our hands full. Problems started at the very first rapid. He surfed in Bride, and then almost pinned and went under an undercut in Frankenstien.


He started to get it together after those close calls and had some pretty decent lines through Boof or Consequences, and Go Left. But after that all hell broke loose. Bozo got a little shakey coming into Zwick's and got surfed big time in the middle hole. I jumped out at quickly as I could so that maybe I could keep him from swimming, because that would suck, but he managed to play his way out of that hole and catch the eddie below before washing into Chiefs and potentially Gorilla. We were all a little on edge after that.



I think the tension over Bozo seemed to affect people becaues lines through Gorilla were't that great. Andrew surfed the first slide hole, Daniel flipped below the drop, and Johnnie Utah tried all the options on his run. After all that a few of us walked.
Now this is where Bozo really started to piss off the group. I mean he had all that trouble through the top of the run and he was out scouting Gorilla like he was going to run it. Daniel of course was egging him on because he always wants carnage footage. Mefford, Nate, and Andrew are like dude this rapid will always be here you can come back and get it another day. But Bozo just looked over at them and smiled and fired it up.

It was not a good thing. He didn't have enough speed coming into the notch and backendered over onto his head and went over the drop upside down. I am sure that he hit his head because he never even tried a roll. Then he flushed down through the slides and just got pummeled in the bottom hole, Nies's Pieces. It was a full on yard sale. But as is the custom everything ends up in the happy place, the river right eddie above Powerslide. This is where I really have to hand it to him he really showed me some guts. He got his stuff together and got back on the water and fired up the rest of the lines including the left line at Sunshine. I mean you have to give him credit he wasn't scared thats for sure. I don't think I could have even got back on the river after what happened to him.
Here is the video from the day.
Bozo on the Green 200%


Big thanks to:
Andrew, Nate, Amos, Johnnie, Mefford, and Daniel for all thier help.
Shane

Redneck Kayak Testing

Well its Friday here at Liquidlogic and last night the ice came out and covered all the trees with a nice layer of the cold stuff. All the grocery stores were out of bread, milk, and toilet paper. Schools canceled across the land. Somebody lost control in front of our shop and knocked all the power out in the neighborhood so I didn't have anything to do in the shop so we decided to have a little fun with a couple trucks, a sledge hammer, and some kayaks. What else was I supposed to do.





I was on Boatertalk in the morning and someone challenged me to do the boat test where you drive the car up on the boats and see how they hold up. We decided to do some other goofing around. We took a couple of boats that were well used and abused and put them to a little more testing. We did several different tests. The first thing was driving up on the boats. That worked out great no issues. There was some deflection but nothing too dramatic. Then Woody started getting really excited about driving the truck and well we found out that kayaks make great jumps, ramps, and parking blocks. Yep thats a 17,000 pound truck. Yep those are a playboat and a riverrunner, and actually they are prototypes which aren't as strong as our production boats. They weren't our creekboats, so they are a little lighter lay up than the creek boats. I can't imagine what those would take.



Then we figured we have two trucks here, some chain, and a kayak. Lets see what else we can do, so we decided to test the security bars and the inserts in the plastic that hold the security bars on the boats. The inserts are actually the weak point in the security bar system, if the insert is small they rip out of the boat. In our boats we put in extra large inserts so that they don't pull out of the boat. Pretty certain that we have the strongest security bar set up in the industry. I am glad that those weren't my tires that were being burned to a crisp.




Last but not least was Woody doing impact testing at 30 degrees. "Hey Shane I know what lets see if I can crack a kayak with this sledge hammer when I hit it right on the end of the boat." "I bet since its cold it will be more brittle." So 10 smacks later with a 20 lb sledge we were having a good time.



Anyway the whole point of this was to have a good time and make some fun video. Beats a stick in the eye.
Here are the videos. If you can keep the audio up there is some funny stuff especially the slow mo sounds.

Redneck Security Bar Test!
Redneck Impact Testing!
Redneck Boat Testing!

Let me know what you think.
Shane

New Video from The Small Town Boyz

The Small Town Boyz sent in another video. I wish I had Skook in my backyard. I think they all forgot how to use their paddles. They seem to be doing everything practically clean. Thanks Dylan for another awesome video clip. I hope we see another entry next year into the contest.


Small Town Boyz Video, Click This!