The Green Race is coming...so lets make a new Liquidlogic race boat!

With just a couple weeks before the Green Race Woody and I decided to make another version of the Remix 100.  We are calling it the Remix Stinger.  A boat designed to go as fast as possible down the Green.  I met up with a group of our fastest racers and talked about what sort of changes we would like to make.  We paddled the 100 and a few other raceboats to compare styles and performance and we came up with a plan.  The Remix 100 was arguably the fastest of the race boats in a straight line but it is a little more challenging to maintain your line.  So we decided to attack two areas of the boat.  One I wanted to make it significantly faster and see if we could handle it, and two I wanted it to track better but not limit the ability to turn as needed.

Here are the finished boats after two 14 hour days for Woody and I of molding and outfitting with the help of John Grace, and Eric "Butter Grab Handle" Hurd.  Notice 6'4" Woody Callaway standing next to the 12'5" Remix Stinger.  The stats are 12'5" long, and 23.5" wide, and somewhere around 100 gallons would be my guess.  As far as design changes go.   I added 9" inches of length in just the stern end of the boat so in reality you could say that its like adding 18" of length to the boat because usually you would add length both bow and stern for balance but what we wanted for this boat was the speed of a long stern but the maneuverability of the shorter bow moving through the drops.    I also worked on the entry of the bow through the water by tucking the chines under the bow a little more on this version of the boat.  The idea behind the pintail and tucked bow chines was to make this version track harder while moving through the cross currents and hammering across the short flat sections of the race section on the Green.  Basically we wanted to make a boat that had the potential to go faster than anything has gone before on the Green.  After some serious calculations I think this boat is 9.654% faster than anything else on the river.  :)

I really like the fact that this boat was made for one single purpose to go fast on the Green and after doing the work to make it happen the first water that all of these boats will touch is the Green. I have to tell you I was a little nervous when we first slid into the water.  I knew the boat would be fast but you never know for certain how it will perform in in the rapids.  So there were lots of questions going through my head as I slid into the water.   The questions of speed was answered immediately by how far the boat glided out away from shore.  As we moved downstream John and I smiled about the speed and got more and more confident with each rapid about how the boat handled.  By the end we all bombed off Sunshine and raced all the way out to the takeout.

Here are all the photos.

Robin Betz and Daniel Windham just send in a cool video.

These guys went up to West Virginia to do a little paddling and they made this sweet little video. I thought I would share it with you all as well as a little write up by Robin.....

We were calling it WV in a VW, but West Virginia in a Westy works too, so whatever you all think is cool works.

Here's my schpeel....

I don't know if you are aware but just after the Green Race in November '07 was the 60th Birthday of the Volkswagon Westfalia Van. And that is sometime around when my parents were born, I think. So that's like close to 3 generations of folks who have been trotting the globe in the comfort of the Vanagon. It's about the same time for the longboats - so we decided to join the club and go kayak W.V. in a VW.
I held onto my Remix 100 for a couple extra weeks after Jerry's Baddle just so I could go run Double Pothole on the Meadow in it. The Remix Hungee was perfect for the Meadow - I only wish we had had the river at 2000 cfs. We also went and ran the Gauley at a level somewhere just below commercial release - and it was amazing! It was the perfect level for catching eddies mid-rapid, making attainment moves, and carving on Geek Wave, yea that' right - carving on Geek Wave. The craziest part of the adventure was running shuttle (literally). Yes, on both runs we hiked (our longboats) out of the river and ran back to the Westy at the putin. I highly recommend paddling West Virginia in a Westy, just don't forget your Remix.

This is a really cool little video these guys put together. Daniel shooting, and Robin paddling the Meadow. Nicely done guys.
Click Here for the movie, "WV in a VW

Here are some other Remix Videos that John Grace made for us recently. I posted one of them already but I figured with the Remix theme on this I would put the rest up.

The first one is Adriene at the Homestake Race at the Teva Mountain Games.
Click it Here For the Remix 59 Video

The second on is me working the no brainer front surf at the Bladder Wave in Idaho.
Click it Here For the Remix 69 Video

Then the last one is Freddy Coriel running the 79 down the North Fork of the Payette during the race and Grace could barely keep up with him in a car.
Click it Here For the Remix 79 Video

First Day on the Green in the Remix 100

Well while Toby and Robin were getting ready for their practice runs in the new boat. I was walking down to the put in of the Green. All the way down to the water I was thinking to myself, "I hope this boat doesn't suck", "I hope I don't smack myself on a rock today", "I wonder if 23 1/2" is really wide enough to be stable", "I hope the bow is as up as I think its going to be", "I hope its fast", "I wonder if I am going to be able to make the turn". I mean cause when it really gets down to it I haven't designed a boat even close to this length. The longest thing I have done or helped with was the Remix or Whip-It and Whiplash in whitewater. So really as I was walking down I was just hoping that my educated guesses were going to be close. It really isn't until you float it out on the water and feel the balance yourself, well at least for me, that you really know what you have. So it was with great relief that I slid in from shore and felt the stability and then the glide while cruising down through the warm up water that I was relieved of most of my questions and worries.

Then I got to Frankenstein and proceeded to run the race line and go straight into the rock instead of missing it to the river left side. No damage to boat or body but it was a friendly reminder that the boat I was paddling was not the Remix 79 or Jefe Grande. Just a little bit longer.

My second run through Franks was much better as you can see I actually have a little angle going the right way.

Adriene and Billy styled Go Left like champs while I whimpered down the sneek the first day.

 Adriene fired up the Flying Squirrel line on the approach to Gorilla. She proceeded to go direct and ace the whole thing. I on the other hand wasn't so sure and my doubts made me pull hard on a boof stroke so I ended up in the eddie.

Billy airing out the Flying Squirrel line.

Me being happy I made the eddie.

But then once I did get turned around and lined up it was a beautiful thing to come flying off the pad with that much speed and I skipped right through the speed trap. I hope I can do that on Saturday.

Billy running the Groove Tube.

Adriene out on the dry line at Groove Tube.

Ahhh safe in the cave. Damn that thing looks long in that picture.
Thanks to Polk for taking the photos.

By the time I got off the river the folks up in Kentucky were probably in the midst of the race. I waited for several hours for the team to get out in the world where cell phone coverage exists. They gave a call and let me know that both Toby and Robin had managed to maintain their titles as Lords of the Fork. So that was awesome and I hadn't even swum once during my run on the Green. All in all it couldn't have gotten any better. Nice day.

Later
Shane

The Birth of the Remix 100

This is the Remix 100

Hey everybody I thought you might like to see the process I went through to create the Remix 100. I used a slightly different process than normal so I could do it very quickly and at as little expense as possible. I have made a few boats on my own using this method and it works great if you ever want to try to make your own.

I based the Remix 100 off of the Remix 69

I used the Remix as a starting point because it has a good base speed and controlable shape and then tweaked it to make it faster. The main things I changed were obviously length taking it from 9 feet to 11'9" and then from 26" wide to 23 1/2". I also dropped the stern rocker and narrowed the chimes a bit to keep adding speed. I kept the hull flatness from the center of the boat to the stern for a couple reasons. The biggest reason was planing out from the bottom of the slides or any rapid for that matter. Once you come off the slides you fly out across the pool for a great glide in this boat. The bow is raised a bit and beefed up a touch for punching through stuff and the bow deck is very crowned so it will surface quickly. The stern deck is fairly flat so that you still get the watermelon affect out of holes or melting situations.



Here is the time line for the boat.

Friday October 12th

We finally decided that we were going to make the Remix 100 for the race. Fortunately I had done some work on the idea in a computer so I wasn't starting from scratch. I finished up the basic design shape and rushed the files to the print shop before they closed for the weekend. The files I had printed out were cross sections of the design. I took the cross sections and traced them out on foam so that I could cut the sections out of 4" thick foam and then began cutting them out and gluing them together. If you did it yourself at home you could draft out the cross sections by hand and use regular insulation foam that you can get at a hardware store.

Once we decided to do the boat I knew that I really wanted to get them done in time for Toby and Robin and the whole LVM crew to be able take them to the Russell Fork but that only gave me two weeks to get it all done.

Saturday October 13th

Lots of cutting out sections and gluing. And of course a quick run on the Green.

Sunday October 14th

I put all the sections together on the frame and let them set for the evening, and ran the river. Its the weekend after all.

Monday October 15th

Alan and I started the process of sanding in the basic shape of the deck. When I am doing this I use everything from a chainsaw to a tiny piece of 1/2" dowel to make the shapes I want. Once the basic shape was finished I started laying out all the recesses, cockpit areas, wall braces, drain plug, grab bar, and any deck detail lines.

Tuesday October 16th

Got most of the deck detail finished and sprayed the deck with a sanding primer which allows me to sand the boat dowm to a fine finish. It takes a few coats to get the boat all even and super smooth.

Wednesday October 17th

Still working on the deck and Alan began making the cockpit rim. At this point the boat looks like its almost done but it takes forever to get the final details all polished and smoothed.

Thursday October 18th

Flip the boat over and start working on the hull. First cutting away all the excess material and then sanding down to the cross sections. Then its the spray and sanding process again.

Friday October 19th

Sanding lots and lots of sanding. At this point if you were doing a boat for yourself you could just glass over all the foam once you have it all sanded out. Then dig out the foam so you can get in and presto magico you have a boat.

Saturday October 20th

Started waxing the model in preparation for making mold with which we will make the limited run of Remix 100s. I also attached the cockpit rim.
Got a run in on the Green while the Wax dried.

Sunday October 21st

Started working on the mold and started getting nervous about running the Green in an 11' 9" boat.

Monday October 22nd

Making the mold.

Tuesday October 23rd

Making the mold.

Wednesday October 24th

Drive to plant in Greensboro NC and get the mold ready to go in the oven first thing Thursday morning.

Thursday October 25th

Make boats all day.

Friday October 26th

Make and assemble boats all day. I left the plant around 7pm and headed for Asheville where the LVM crew was waiting for me so they could load up and head for the Russell Fork Race. I also got REALLY nervous about my first long boat run since back in the day. Met the boys in Asheville at 10:00pm and headed home to dreams of flying off Gorilla in a nearly 12 foot long boat.

Saturday October 27th

Toby and Robin won the Lord of the Fork race and I didn't break my neck on the Green.
Here is the link to the Russell Fork Race Blog. Theres lots of good photos.
http://www.russellforkrace.blogspot.com

Later
Shane

ps I just updated this with better pictures from the time.  Now this boat is called the Stinger and is 8" longer.