Section 00, 0, and 1 of the Chattooga in a day, along with other ramblings

I think Adriene is excited about the day.

Adriene said she wanted to paddle all the Upper Chattooga.  Who was I to argue?

For more than forty years it's been illegal to paddle the upper reaches of the Chattooga river (huge thanks AW!), and besides me, no one else in the group had ever paddled the upper sections before so it seemed like it would be irresponsible of me not to go along.  Especially given the perfect levels (about 700 cfs at Burrel's Ford).  As I was chatting with Adriene on the phone it became clear that she didn't really understand that paddling all 15 miles of the newly opened sections of river was going to be a challenge, not because of the hard rapids, but because of the miles, the portages, the hikes, and the rapids.  After I said, "ok its going to be a long day."  She said, "and if we get done quickly we can go do Overflow.  Oh and we want to get an early start so we can get back and cook a nice curry dinner!"

At that point I decided I better brush up on my memories of the run and trails along the river, just in case.  There are some good maps on the American Whitewater page that I started pouring over.

I packed extra water, Snickers bars, fleece, a headlamp, and a little vitamin i.  I knew we would be ok because there is trail along 80% of the run so we could get out no matter how badly we got delayed, but, still... I have done this trip twice before and each time we got off the river in the dark and now that it's legal having to hike in two miles and out nearly a mile to actually be legal makes it that much harder.  So I had a feeling we weren't going to be running Overflow or making a nice Curry for dinner.

Yes we went too far.  AW says if you see the handrail you've gone too far.  :) oops

It was a deceptively cold day.  It was KAVU as hell out there but when we stepped out of the car at the put-in there was ice all over the parking area and it was 28 degrees.  Fortunately we were going to be hiking for a bit to get warm.  The two mile hike in along the Chattooga River Trail is fairly easy but it is uphill the first half and then along the ridge and down to the river the second half.  We had a touch of confusion about exactly where to put-in and we didn't want to ruffle any private land owner feathers so we went a little further down than we had to.  I later read the American Whitewater page for the upper section a little more closely and its pretty clear.  I should have studied harder.  I guess I could say that about college too, but I was too busy sneaking off to go paddling rather than getting to class all the time.

First Falls, a nice little starter slide

The first time I did this section, let's just say it was a little while ago, our group rolled up to the Burrel's Ford take-out of section 0 in Beaz's land yacht of a car, loaded down with gear for 5, there sitting in the parking lot was a ranger.  He looked a little bored but perked up when he saw us drive in.  He knew exactly why we were there and I actually knew the guy because at the time I was guiding on the Chattooga a bunch and saw him at the river often.  

The conversation went like this: 

"What are you guys up to?" 

"Ummm going kayaking?"

"You know this section is illegal don't you?" 

"Ummm yes.  What happens if we get caught running it?" 

"Its a $500 fine."

"$500 dollars per person or could we pay it all together?" I was trying to decide if that would be worth the risk.  

The ranger smiled and said, "$500 a person",  and turned away to talk with some other folks.  We schemed in the car about what we were gonna do.  

The ranger walked back over to us and said with a very deliberate tone.  "If. I. catch. you. I am gonna fine you $500 dollars.  You guys have a good day", and he walked away.  

"THANKS", I said, trying to keep my excitement somewhat controlled.  He had given us the green light without having to say it.

Log Jam Portage

Slide in amongst the Log Jam

The Upper sections of the Chattooga have a bit of an ominous feel when you first get out there.  When we used to run them in the past it was unsettling because you were sneaking around and where we put in you paddled in on a tiny river/ creek, ducking through the rhodos all the way to the lip of the rapids.  From the new put-in, the first thing you run into is a huge log jam that you have to portage over, down, and through to a seal launch amongst the logs and rocks.  These sections just aren't  "normal" in the southeast.   We are used to our river runs being accesible, well manicured, even the portages on most of our runs are fairly easy but here on the upper you start with a fairly long hike into the Nantahala National Forest, portage through a log jam, the rapids have wood in them that is illegal to remove, and you know at any one time you might have to hike several miles to get to a road or phone.  It gives it the feel of a remote run anywhere in the world not the well lapped routes of the Southeast.

No Kayaks is a stupid name.  Can't we come up with something else?  How about Exit from Log Jam?

Dropping into the Alleyway.

After you get through the initial worries of the hiking and portaging the log jam and immediately get into a couple of cool drops you settle down a little.  The river is spectacularly beautiful.  It is classic southeast creeking.  If you are from the south you know it well: thick rhodo along the river, moss-covered boulders, and sweet, tight, whitewater.  But all the time, in the back of your mind, you feel just a little uneasy.  Logs, a few sieves, and the remoteness keep you on your toes.  Though the rapids aren't difficult, some of the consequences are, and the potential for a long walk out in the dark and cold of winter remind you to keep moving downstream.

The Waterfall in the Alleyway

When I was a kid I went to a camp in Highlands N.C. at the very top of the Chattooga watershed.  My brother and I worked for a decade there, at The Mountain.  We hiked along most of the upper reaches of the river along the upper Chattooga, Overflow, Holcombe, Big Creek and many others.  We paddled our first rapids on the West Fork and Section 2 and though I only lived at the river for a few years as a raft guide I still call this place home.  I love the fact that the first times I paddled most any of the upper Chattooga drainages I didn't realize that I was floating through places that during the hot summer months as a kid, I swam under those waterfalls, and through the potholes.  Now when I return to the Chattooga I get to touch Ellicott's rock,  jump off of Singley's, and slide down Big Bend falls in a different way.  It's good to be home again.

My brother at the put-in for section 2 of the Chattoga (1980), just a couple miles from our take-out the other day.

Oh damn, I got distracted from the story of the river the other day.  Sections 00, 0, and 1 of the Chattooga are very cool.  The character is similar to the sister tributary, Overflow, but the rapids are much more spread out.  There are long stretches of mellow water with easy rapids.  Along those mellow parts stretch miles and miles of trail and lots of folks camping and fishing along the river.  We had only positive interactions with anglers.  I have to admit I was prepared for the worst with all the verbal sparring in the different forums over the re-introduction of paddlers to the upper reaches of the river.  The day was long but we made it to the take-out just as the dark was getting thick enough that I needed to pull out my headlamp for the last couple hundred yards.  The trail put the finishing touches on our energy reserves and a happy exhausted crew posed for the obligatory team paddling photo which by chance was taken by one of the very folks that made this run possible the equally tired and happy Don Kinzer, thank you.

If you head over to do the Upper Chattooga:

1.  The AW page has good instructions on how to get to the Put-In and Take-Outs of all the sections. Read them more carefully than I did.

2.  The trails are not totally obvious, read the hiking directions on the AW pages.

3.  Pay attention to Don't Go Left.  You can go left but its stupid and a little sketchy.  Going right looks horrible with the wood that is there right now but it is fine; go straight over the hump on the right side.  You will probably spot the rapid if you look for a fairly innocuous drop maybe a half mile down from the Log Jam with fairly large wood coming in from the right that looks like it will make the right side scary to run.

4.  Trails run along most of the river.  Study them and you'll find your evac plans aren't too bad.

5.  If you aren't comfortable running on beta from others scouting don't try to do the whole thing.  

6.  Section 1 is really nice, mostly scenic but there are some good rapids and there is wood involved.  The last "Rock Gorge" is a really sweet section of whitewater.

7.  The easiest hike out trail is a couple hundred yards down from Lick Log Creek.  You can hike directly from the confluence of Lick Log Creek with the river but it's more difficult.
8.  On January 19th it got too dark to paddle without a headlamp at 6:19 pm.

Corey on the right side of Bull Pen Bridge rapid.

Yonton dropping into Super Corkscrew on Section 0

Snowy in Rock in the hole in the wall.

Adriene heading into one of the final drop, Harvey Wallbanger

6 hrs, 15 miles of paddling, 3 miles of hiking, an awesome day.

Here is a link to the rest of the photos from the day.  Click Here

Make sure to get out and do this somewhat unknown classic.
Shane

Stomper testing on the Green with Brown Claw

Brown Claw wants a Cracker

 Last season seemed to be the, thankfully, climax of the brown claw epidemic.  However I didn't enter my video into the Brown Claw archives so here it is.  You will see your basic Claw, The Spinning Claw, Under Over Claw, Double Claws of Fury, The Clap On Claw, The Clap on WTF, The Double Shocker Claw, The Claw of Terror, The Claw Your Way out of a Hole, The Preemptive Claw, The Claw Your Friend, and the Claw Your Way Up Out of the Water.

They Wander Downstream...I Claw My Way

Enjoy and May The Claw Be With You.
Shane

Testing the Stomper with Woody and others on the Green at 9"

Dropping into the Green with Woody

Another classic day of footage that I recovered from the depths of the Stomper prototype testing archive.  It was a day much like we have had lately.  Water and air temps were just starting to get downright comfy last year as the final touches were being put on the Stomper.  All the crew was out on a perfect weekend.  It just doesn't get much better than that.  Oh and add on top of that I got to roll down the river with my paddling and business partner Woody Callaway.  He is living my goal in paddling to just keep rolling out smooth lines for a really long time.

In any case the Stomper proved fun for all... and it rolls well!

Cheers
Shane

The Green River at 16"

Its not that different just a little more padding

Well now that I found this little nest of forgotten footage I might as well keep going.  Adriene and I got out on the river last winter at 16".  I was testing out one of the early protos of the Stomper 80.  It was a fun day just the two of us out there.  We didn't see a soul.

To me the river is actually easier and more fun at this level, except Gorilla of course.  The whole thing is just softer.  The boney rocks and slides that beat you up daily at normal flows are well padded and the extra juice makes it more splashy and bouncy.  Yes there are a few holes that become a bit more disconcerting but over all it makes the river easier.  The best examples of that are Go Left, Zwicks, and Sunshine.  At Go Left you can start to run down the entire left side of the whole rapid which makes it a direct line rather than having to paddle out on the dome and turn hard to run the slots at the bottom of the rapid.  In this video I run the sneak and Adriene comes down the Left Left line.  Just watch the log its pretty exposed at 16 and gets better as you go up.  At Zwicks you can run right of the top hole which takes this one from being one of the tougher rapids to being one of the easier.  You can't help but run out over the shallow slide.   At Sunshine as the levels get over 16 inches you can just run straight off the middle and pretty much clear the center rock.  Adriene ran straight and I ran the right line.  I should have run the straight line because I did flip over.   Gorilla is a beast and it gets really beastly as the water goes up.  We walked it.

Going Direct at Go Left

The down side to the river being this high or higher is that when things do go wrong they go wrong really quickly and in a much worse way.  Its going to be a long time before you can pull your boat out of the river if you swim and it may be a rapid or two before you can swim yourself to shore if you aren't aggressively swimming.  So if you are thinking about running this river at higher flows make sure you know the lines well and know you can deal with the issues that can arise.  If you have that covered this can be some of the best runs on the river you will ever have.

Oh and don't forget about Hammer Factor.  When the water levels rise the bad ass paddlers that are on this river at hi flows aren't worried about Go Left or Sunshine.  They are pinching a loaf about Hammer Factor.  Its big, nasty, and it gives grown boys and girls nightmares.

The Pit in Hammer Factor

Here is the video from the day.

Adventures from found footage: Testing the Stomper on Yellow Creek

I was sifting through my hard drive and stumbled across a few extra morsels of Stomper prototype goodness.  These tidbits came from a day when we were doing the classic chase the rain around looking at rivers that were too high or in the case of the Santeetlah the gate was locked and we couldn't get near the put in or take out so we had to opt for something that none of us had done and as always happens on these types of days we had 45 minutes of daylight.  Yellow Creek flows into the Cheoah River.  Its the last river on the American Whitewater database of rivers for North Carolina.  However we had no idea what we were getting into. We didn't know what the level should be but it looked paddleable.   We had no idea how long it would take but we did know that it was short and worst case we would be able to walk out in the dark if all hell broke loose.   As it turned out it was a fun short run that takes about 45 minutes.  The top 2/3rds is easy peasy, fun and cheesy.  The part from the falls down to the Cheoah River is pretty juicy with a nasty sieve and some fun read and run.  The Stomper rocked it in this tight and technical environment.  Mefford, Adriene, Snowy, and I had a great time.  Enjoy the flick. Fast and furious helmet cam love.

Cheers
Shane

The first prototype of the Stompers on the Green River

The Test Crew, Day 1 on the Green River in the Stomper 80, Freight Train, Elvis, and Lil A'

The first day that I had the protos of the Stomper 80 the Green was so crowded that I didn't want to have our brand new protos out on the river for the entire world to see.  So we had headed over to the Chattooga river where we knew we wouldn't run into too many folks, especially since it was over 4ft.  The next day was a Monday and we knew that it wouldn't be crowded out there on the river so we decided to drop in on a good flow of 15" on the stick.   A couple of us had paddled the boat the day before but John and Jeff hadn't so those guys were excited.  They geared up quickly and were on their way down the trail almost before I could get my frozen dry suit on.

First thing you might notice is that I made all the cockpits larger.  A large skirt is hard to put on.

I threw a curve ball at the team with these new boats.  I made the cockpits a little larger.  So we all had large cockpit spray skirts which made for a funny moment when we had to decide who was going to be the last one in the boat.  We got it all figured out though.  The other difference in the cockpit area is that the cockpit is recessed a little more and the cockpit is straighter looking from the side than other boats which does a couple things.  It protects your skirt from your paddle bashing it as much and it keeps more water from squirting up under the skirt from the side and back which is the place where the most leaking happens.  I also straightened the cockpit as it goes up and over your knees.  This makes it drier as well because the skirt isn't trying to follow all the crazy curves.  However in the first prototype I did make the recess a little too tight.  :)  I had a hell of a time fitting a large rand skirt into the recess.  I fixed that on later editions of the boat.  Ok lets go back to paddling.

Lil' A cleaning Frankenstein 

Rapid number 1, Frankenstein, showed an obvious difference in a flatter hulled design, quick turning.  The move through this rapid is tight and technical with a quick change of direction and then a boof that Adriene is doing in the photo.  We all smiled at each other with the knowing realization of how nice it made that move.  As soon as we came out of the tight part of the rapid and we needed to make the turn to line up for the boof it happened instantaneously.  The Stomper turned so quickly that I had to back off a little and realign my boof.

That nice flat hull can also have a side affect when it comes to creeking and running rivers in general.  Those can hang up on rocks, hard eddie lines, and currrents and we felt that a little as we dropped off the boof in Frankenstein.  The left edge sort of hung on the drop and made it a little harder to pull the boat level underneath as I  landed.  It wasn't much but I could feel a little instability.  Nobody flipped over or anything but it was something to note and think about as we paddled the rest of the river.  It wouldn't be long before the edges would show a nasty side that I would have to fix in the next proto and would make us all a little nervous.

Well it got a lot more exciting when we got to Go Left and Die.  I pulled out on the rocks in the middle of the river to take some pictures and those guys lined up to run it.  At this level it is a super beefy rapid.  The hole is very stout and its too low to run the straight line that gives you tons of speed over the hole so you have to run the normal line and drop into the meat of the rapid.  Grace had a sweet line but Adriene was coming in a little lower and a touch slower so she took a little more of the rock in the center of the drop and suddenly her downstream edge caught and she tumbled straight over the center rock.  In Adriene style she landed on her feet with a big smile on her face.  At this point I knew I was going to have to work on the edges a little to make them more forgiving.  Luckily this was prototype number 1 with many more revisions to go. Adriene wasn't done yet either.

Adriene finding an edge in Go Left and Die

I don't want to make it out like Adriene had a bad day but she did have these two crazy things happen to her on her way down the river.  First she does the crazy flippy thingy in Go Left and then she scares the hell out of all of us at Gorilla.  Gorilla is also a really tough rapid at 15".  The notch is pretty much at it meanest.  The whole volume of the river does a complete flip as it goes through a 5 foot wide crack in the rocks.  It is very hard to stay upright and in any semblance of control through that kind of chaos.  At higher flows you can actually clear the notch and miss that mess. Grace came through beautifully.  Even though he is usually paddles a much larger boat he stayed in control and if not on the surface the whole time he resurfaced under control and headed in the direction he intended.  Now I can't really say the same is true for Adriene.

Grace resurfacing like a champ at the base of Gorilla

Adriene's run was very exciting and scary to watch.  The first time I saw her after she came through the notch she was upside down and headed for the drop.  She was still upside down as the boat started to go off the lip and I was getting ready for a rescue.  If you look at the photo you can see how close she is to the wall on the right of the photo.  If she stays upside down she lands on rocks and meets a rock we all call "face breaker", with her face, but what happens next surprises us all.  From under the water I see her paddle quickly snap a stroke and she is perfectly upright at the moment she hits the bottom of the drop.  She has huge eyes when she paddles into the eddie next to us.  Grace, Freight Train, and I all have huge eyes.  Then she says, "well this thing definitely rolls easily".  At the time I wasn't sure if that was the adrenaline making that roll easy or the actual rolling characteristics of the boat.








The holes below Gorilla were stompy big and tough to get up and over because of the sloping drops that lead into them.  The angle of the slides as you approach the holes in Scream Machine and Nies Pieces make your bow drop down into the foam piles which can lead to excessive poundings and abstract freestyle kayaking of the unintentional kind.  What we were hoping for was what we call a "land and leave" feel in the flatter bottom boats and that is what we got.  In the photos below you can see that John is headed right into the meat of it bow down but the next shot you can see the bow has skipped up and is headed out of the hole and on downstream.  The "land and leave" characteristic is one that I wanted to make sure and keep in the Stomper through out the development.  On this day I found 3 amazing qualities that let me know I was headed in the right direction.  The first thing everyone notices is how quickly it turns.  The second one is the speed and "land and leave" feel that you get while paddling the Stomper. And the third thing that Adriene specifically figured out was how easily it rolled.

Grace entering a BIG hole in Scream Machine

And skipping through!

It the winter the main gorge of the Green can be pretty dark and cold but when you come around the big bend dropping off of Groove Tube and approaching the next big rapid the name suddenly makes a lot more sense.  Sunshine is the warmest and most spectacular spot on the river in the winter months.  The rapid is still scary but the sun gives you a little more confidence.  The rest of the river was beautiful and we were starting to get comfortable with this first proto of the Stomper.  We would paddle proto 1 for a couple weeks before moving onto the next version of the boat.  The Green would obviously be the main testing ground and I paddled it at levels from 3" up to 25" or basically flooding.  I will get a bunch more photos up there for you all to see but for now enjoy the sunny finish of our first day on the Green in the Stomper.

Groove Tube in the Sunlight.

Jeff "Freight Train" Paine with a sweet left line at Sunshine

Lil' A speeding through Hammer Factor

Here is a link to the temporary Stomper pages on the LL page http://liquidlogickayaks.com/stomper_80.cfm
They will start shipping to stores this week.  Stomper 90 starts shipping mid August.
Talk to your dealer and make sure they have demos on order or just get your order in.

Here are a bunch of photos from that first day on the Green.
Cheers
Shane

The First Round of Prototyping of the Liquidlogic Stomper

Lil' A taking the Stomper through its initial paces.  Remember that this is an early proto so the images you see will follow along with the timeline of testing and prototyping the Stomper.  This post is mostly just the 1st proto and some of the changes I made going into the second phase of testing.

We had lots of discussions amongst ourselves and and with you all about what the next creek boat should be for Liquidlogic.  Here are some of the public discussions we had on our Facebook Page.

Here is one thread specifically about a  flat hulled creek boat.
https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=112078594802&topic=16242

Here is a thread about all types of things you all wanted us to work on in the coming years.
https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=112078594802&topic=16207

One more link to more chatter.
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150139513145992&comments

Here was one of the early discussions about design on our page.
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150136294870992&comments

Woody and the rest of the team and I had been thinking about doing a flatter hulled creek boat for a long time.  In fact I had started a design a while back but had put it on the back burner because the Jefe as always is still killing it for us in stores, and everybody loves it, but once we got all that feedback from you all it was a no brainer.   The full on design process began.  I worked off the initial design concept that I had started earlier and started adding new thoughts and details.  The main focus of the design was to get more speed out of a creek boat that was super easy to use, comfortable, and bomber safety wise.

The speed was influenced by the Remix.  Many of the team and I have been paddling a Remix on all types of water since we came out with it.  I love it for creeking or big water and the speed and smoothness of lines are a big reason for that.  So I wanted to put some of that in the new boat for us to enjoy.  The ease of use was all about making it something that any paddler would want to get into.  The fact that it is flatter in hull shape means that it spins on a dime and the edges allow you to really carve into an eddie or across currents, but those edges need to be tucked so that you won't trip over them unexpectedly which we discovered in this first proto.  We also dropped the seat a little lower in this boat so that stability and rolling would be ridiculously forgiving and easy.  Bad Ass Outfitting takes care of most of the comfort stuff but through out the design of this boat we took a lot of time to look at the cockpit heights, knee and legs angles, and we designed a new seat for this boat with better support and always focusing on a comfortable ride.

Once we had the initial shape down I played around with a bunch of different deck details but none of them really tripped my trigger like a clean looking boat.  No edges to bash your fingers and knuckles on, and less weight by cutting down on extra surfaces.  The deck shape was very focused on shedding water and creating a strong shape that would hold up under a lot of stress and pressure.




The day we pulled the first protos out of the oven it rained epically.  The stars were aligning for a perfect testing situation.  The first day the water was soooo high we decided to go get on some big water.  My girls Adriene and Maria wanted to go check out the small creeker with me on some good classic Chattooga high water. The river was running around 4 feet (Normally around 1.5 feet) so we knew it would be a good test of the boats ability to handle the bigger stuff.

 One thing I hadn't even thought about was how well it was going to surf!  Adriene feeling it!

Maria cruising in the sun!


At the put in for Section 4 of the Chattooga there is an awesome big boat wave.  We could have spent all day there because the boat was soo much fun to surf.  Easy edge control and ruddering which can be a bear in a creek boat.  The flatter hull made it downright playful on the wave.

Big water "Corkscrew"!!  So fun.


But big water and tough moves were what we really wanted to test in this boat.
It was all about the speed working our way through the pushy water in the "five falls" section.  Another thing I didn't think about was how the semi planing hull would assist in surfing out of trouble.  In the shot below you can see Maria was a little right of the desired line at Soc'em Dog and dropped right into the pit of the big hole.  Maria popped out with a big smile on her face because the beating she was expecting was just a more exciting line rather than a bootie beer experience.

Maria dropping into the pit of Soc'em Dog.

And popping out smiling!


The day was amazing out there.  We learned some of the great benefits of the new design and we also found out that there were some improvements that needed to be made for that type of water.  The edges were a little grabby in cross currents which showed itself a couple times when we weren't expecting it but the speed was soo fun we knew we didn't want to affect that too much by softening the edges.

Of course this was only the first day so really we had a long way to go in testing the Stompers first iteration.  We hadn't even really had time to figure out the balance, trim, and paddling style that worked best with this boat.  We knew it would come and we knew we would have a bunch of time to test this boat out on the Green.  Water levels were still high at the end of this day and rumor had it that the Green was running over 20 inches.  It was looking like there would be lots of good flow to test on.

The Green River just before the big rains started.  The next post will be testing 

the new protos on the Green.

Thanks to all of you for offering your thoughts on the design.  It wouldn't be the same without it.

Cheers

Shane

Toby's Video

The Design and Development of the Liquidlogic Stomper Creek Boat

Initial Stomper Model before Gelcoat

Its been a while since we (Liquidlogic) introduced a new extreme boat design.  I mean what are you going to do next, once you have the Jefe as your go to creek boat?  The answer is that we have done nothing for 6 years.  Few other creek boats have come close to the respect and accomplishments of that which has been normal and expected of the Jefe series.  So we came at this project with the knowledge that it was going to take a special boat to accompany the Jefe in our line as a legitimate design.  Let alone we have to face our team of paddlers when we say we are going to come out with a new boat.  John Grace, Tommy Hileke, Evan Garcia, and Adriene Levckencht are not gonna just let us come out with an average kayak as the next great thing.  They want it to be something special.

Pretty!!

What we have come up with through lots of encouragement from paddlers all over the world is  The Stomper series.  Where the Jefe plugs and tracks The Stomper spins and carves.  The Stomper is an integration of the Jefe and the Remix.  It has an amazing combination of speed, and carving, with an added sense of confidence inspired stability and comfort.  The Stomper design is all about finding an ability to skip though big holes, maneuvering in technical water, and giving paddlers something they have never experienced in an LL design, a flat hulled creek boat.

Jefe on the Left, Early Stomper 80 proto on the right

This is the beginning of the story of its development.  Some of it is pretty and full of perfect lines... however some of its development is dark and horrible.  When you reach beyond, outside your comfort zone you find edges, and darkness.  When you decide to design a creek boat to compliment one of the greatest creek boat designs ever you have quite a task ahead of you.  The road is not clear however the testing is a lot of fun.  My desire is to post over the next two months a complete story of the development of the Stomper.

Adriene Stomping "Go Left" at 25"... Thats really really high!

The Stomper will be sold in two models.
Stompers will be shipping in Late July and August!!
I suggest you ask your dealer to get a demo in immediately.

Here are the basic specs.

Stomper 80
8'2" Long
25 3/4" Wide
15" Tall
110- 210 Paddler Weight
80 gallons
XL Cockpit

Stomper 90
8'6" Long
26 3/4" Wide
16" Tall
170- 270 Paddler Weight
90 gallons
XL Cockpit

Retail Price will be $1099

Here is to the hype!

And here is the slideshow of a bunch of photos.


Cheers
Shane