10 things you should know about Overflow

The last 6 months have been crazy.  Liquidlogic and our brotha brand Native Watercraft have moved our entire manufacturing facility and offices from Greensboro to Fletcher NC, near the Green River.  Its kind of like moving from one house to another except the moving truck is a tractor trailer and instead of one truck it took us 50 tractor trailer loads to get everything in the building.  I have had the pleasure of designing new offices, helping design the manufacturing floor plan, helping train new staff, integrating new manufacturing plans, and I am definitely getting pretty good on a fork lift.  All that has been on top of the normal stuff so to say the least its been a fun busy time. A different sort of Class 5 which has made it difficult for me to take off and run much other than our home run the Green.

However... the other day it rained cats and dogs.  It rained enough that I knew things would be super high in the morning but that they might start dropping in during the afternoon.  I had convinced myself I would be fine just going to work and not worrying about it but as the day wore on my leg started that twitch thing.  The boatingbeta flows page was on constant refresh and Overflow was looking like it would drop in perfectly, if I left right then.  Fortunately Yonton was ready and on call for a paddling adventure.  We loaded up my van with boats, gear, and the motorcycle for the shuttle and we were off.

10 things to know about Overflow

1.  The shuttle road is longer and a little rougher than you think.
2.  The mud on the put in trail is slicker than snot.
3.  The right eddie in Hemlock is a bitch to get out of while you wrestle rhodos.
4.  There is a new tree after 7 Car Pile Up. Watch the video.
5.  The left hump boof at Round About is awesome.
6.  Gravity is much harder at lower water.  Fortunately we had a sweet level of 1.3579341
7.  If you haven't been on Overflow there is an initiation.  If you have its your job to initiate.
8.  The Twilight mini gorge is one of the coolest sections of whitewater you'll ever run.
9.  The Great Marginal Monster is an awesome iconic rapid.  Go left on the drop below it.
10. The motorcycle shuttle is awesome!

It was a perfect fall evening, enjoy the video.

Sometimes you forget how good a river is...Overflow from Shaneslogic on Vimeo.

Shane

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 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

Awesome High Water Days on Oh Be Joyful

Oh Be Joyful is one of the classics of Colorado and there has been a race on this run for a fair number of years. A straight downstream race from just above the 15 footer to the bottom of the big slides. The first race Clay beat me by a second or so...dammit. This time I wasn't racing but I did get to paddle with everyone and set up some good racing and expose folks to a new form of racing that we call Giant Slalom. Its like slalom except we race over pretty big rapids. This year we have had a race on Brush Creek, The Little White Salmon, The North Fork of the Payette, and now Oh Be Joyful, with a future race on the Green and then a national championships again on the Green but this time rumour has it the organizers are trying to get 200% flow for the finals. That will be cool.


Thanks to Trevor Clark for this cool evening shot at the 15 footer

Oh Be was definitely higher than I had done it. We were dealing with pretty big holes on a run that I can't remember ever worrying about holes on. When we first walked up it was a little intimidating but we knew it pretty well so we felt pretty comfortable getting on. The main thing I noticed was how fast we were moving. We put in up just below Ankle Breaker and before I knew it we were down in the meat of it. Not that OBJ is a long run, we did hike up about a mile maybe, but there is a fair bit of gradient packed into that short run. I took a good hit in the 15 footer the first day just a reminder that a good line can still cause problems. I stomped the drop but forgot to pay attention to my paddle and nearly popped my teeth threw my lip. I was stoked with my line but everyone was looking at me funny and a little big eyed as I spit blood for a minute. To say the least the paddle was well to the side on all the big drops the rest of the weekend.


The Normal Big Slide Finish

We had a great groups out on the river and in the evenings with the melt peaking usually after 5 pm the water was a good 8-10 inches higher than in the morning. The high flow was great for the normal run but it also added a couple drops below the normal take out that get pretty manky at lower flows. I know one of them is called Ass Breaker or something like that. What is it with this valley and the rapid names? Ankle Breaker, Face Ripper, Ass Breaker, I think there were actually more names like that but I can't come up with them right now. How about we call some things Fluffy Bunny and Twilight.


Big Slide Below Normal Take Out, with Big Hole


Travis Styling the Giant Slalom

The Giant Slalom turned out to be a favorite with the racers. The course was set up so there were hard committing moves. It started with a couple tricky small moves into eddies and then opened up with a big move off the falls where you had to stay left but then make a gate on the right side of the river. Clay found a submercible line and Andrew boofed the hell out of it. Both of them taking top spots in both the Down river and Giant Slalom. It was awesome to watch. I think next year someone else will be keeping time and setting the course I am ready to race.


The Gate on the Falls


The Gate Below the Falls


Gongrats on the Win Andrew

The race turned out to be a huge success. Folks had a great time. The water was high and the sky was blue. And the ranger didn't like that we were doing this without a permit so I get to go visit our friends at the BLM again in Gunnison County for a required court date. The fun never ends. The 4 days we spent camping at the base of OBJ were spectacular, can't wait to get back again.

Later
Shane
More photos below in the slideshow.