Oar Management When Catching Eddies | Ep. 134

[@jaretthart422]

Keep these coming!! This content is great! Thanks for the work you are putting in on these!!

[@GearGarageTV]

I'm glad you're enjoying them. We have a lot more instructional videos as part of our online course at www.whitewatereducation.com/.

[@seanfraser7738]

Really nice job Zach! I love the zoom in to see the oar management in detail. Impressive tech prowess! And great advice too.

[@andrewbrown6522]

Dude you have some of the clearest how to videos ive ever seen. I have some river experience in my yak amd just got a boat but technically don't know anything. Just kinda instinct i guess. You are putting words to things i have observed and wondered about.. Love it. Thank you!

[@peterfrey1456]

Thanks for starting to put together a series on how to row rapids. As I've gotten into boating, I've been surprised at how hard it is to find any sort of instruction on the internet, so I'll be following this closely!

[@stephencifka4629]

Great video, Zach. There is lots to visualize, so the combo of the white board, lego raft, then followed up with actual footage works really well. More!

[@GearGarageTV]

Gret to hear!

[@renofornow]

Zach, thanks so much for putting these instructional videos together. As an intermediate rafter I find the advanced techniques, such as catching eddies, to be very valuable. We just got off the Grande Ronde and I was hoping to try some of the moves from earlier videos like pushing rather than pulling into eddies. I figured the GR is a pretty mellow run, should be a good place to practice. The river had other ideas. The river was pumping at Minam and we watched logs, root balls and other large debris go ripping by. The Minam Roller was as scary as Ive ever seen it, a real hazard at this flow (about 13K) and we averaged something like 8-9 mph for 3 days. Needless to say there were not many eddies to catch and most landings were fast and required a good plan by the group and quick action on the beach. So I wasn't able to successfully make very many push attempts at breaking into eddies. But still a good learning experience. I understand the fundamentals and will practice them when I can. Hope you're surviving in this crazy situation we're in. Keep doing what you do!

[@GearGarageTV]

I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the videos. The Grande Ronde doesn't have many classic eddies and that's especially the case at high water. Hopefully you can get on some better rivers for practice this summer.

[@thedirtdad4915]

Zach, these videos are great, thank you ery much. The Lego Raft is awesome! (My daughter has one from one of her sets)

[@Echowouldgo]

Appreciate you, thanks!

[@jvill7577]

Found your channel a few weeksnago and I'm hooked. Please keep em up your experience is unreal and super helpful. Thanks Zach

[@GearGarageTV]

I'm glad the videos help!

[@zeor0cool]

Great Zach the live-action video clips are very helpful please continue to include them.

[@GearGarageTV]

Yes the hard part is getting the right live-action video clip

[@steezjenkins]

Thanks!

[@bobsantin3027]

Hi Zach, I'm so proud of the WW leader that you have become in the industry. I love the instructional videos like the low water Illinois video. I never had an idea it could have been run so low. You are giving back so much more that just the incredible offerings of Northwest Rafting commercial river trips. I'm watching the flows on the South Salmon Idaho and they seem unusually high for a fairly normal or below snow pack. Do you think there might have been a change in the river by the gauge that might have effected the "feet' reading higher than the past? We ran it at 3.75 ft a couple years ago and thought that or 3.5 to be a good target. Thanks a bunch & miss you. Bubba

[@GearGarageTV]

Bubba! It's great to hear from you and am stoked you're enjoying the videos. On the South Salmon it's raining out there right now so that could be affecting the flows.

[@seanfraser7738]

Can you put in a link to your cool scarves?

[@WesLoneWolf]

good stuff man, thanks for sharing

[@seanfraser7738]

I'd like to see the current lines hitting and splitting around the up stream part of the rock. No biggie, and fine without, but that pillow above affects the swirls below.

[@grahambates3931]

when I click on the link for the AMazon lego raft it says "Page not found"

[@GearGarageTV]

Try this riverhardware.com/products/lego-oar-raft

[@wwrafter]

It might take a few runs, but if you have a "home" river that you run frequently, you could use different techniques for the same rapid/eddy and then merge the video of the runs as a comparison. I.e. For this eddy, we're going to show pushing and pulling, both with and without weight, with weight in front and weight in back... I've been thinking about creating just that kind of video since I'll probably be more often in my oarboat to maintain distancing.

[@GearGarageTV]

Yep that's the idea but it's a TON of work to get all of those videos together. We're working on it.