I thought I would post this in an effort to show others that you don’t necessarily need two different types of solo boats to enjoy white water playing and tripping.
This is a Bell Yellowstone in ABS and is 14.5’ long. Most solo tripping boats are not that deep which means in wave or ww you can take on a lot of water.
In this simple CII on the Gull River at Moore falls without the cover I took in a fair amount of water. The largest wave here (which is not seen here) is just a little taller than the boat
Moore falls rapid
Now the same boat with the boat cover, covering most of the boat (with airbags in the ends this time
)
Covered boat
This time playing at the Minden Wild Water Preserve from the falls down to the lake a nice CIII. Even with ferrying at the bottom of the Otter slide.
With this setup I took in less water than the 2 specialized ww double open boats.
A lot is still going to depend on your skill to read the ww, but I was amazed how much water was kept out. I ran with the full spray cover on a early spring trip down 16 mile creek in early March (CII & III) and did not have to empty the boat the entire trip.
Otter slide Minden (Gull is running 8.0 on the guage)
So there is an option for those of us that are looking for a boat that can cover more than one type of paddling activity.
Jeff
PS the paddler is meant to be fuzzy..
I was just playing with long exposures and thought it might look neat with a ghost paddler....