What does "spud boat" mean?
PaddleGirl
Kegs
> I have seen this term recently but don't know exactly what it means. Thanks!
Two meanings really, the first is a super short (220cm) long kayak
with blunt ends and very few hard edges, used for running very steep or
technical whitewater rivers, like the Eskimo Topolino or the Pyranha Microbat.
The other type, which might well be what you heard the phrase in relation
to is an extremely short (2m or less) playboat, with quite blunt but slashy
ends, such as the Wavesport Transformer or the Pyranha S6. Used for
the newer aerial tricks, but pretty slow and not up to mush for green wave
surfing IMO.
HTH, HAND
--
James
jamesk[at]beeb[dot]net
Destroy the Borg? Upload Windows 95 !
Jim Wallis
many years (spud is slang for potato, which it resembles). AFAIK the
term spud-boat refers to any small creek boat that is a bit like the
topolino (including the topolino of course), but is more a reflection on
the style of paddling such a boat (i.e. bouncing off rocks without a
care) than how close it really is to the original.
In europe a spud-boater would typically:
Be German (or Scottish)
wear a full face helmet
Use schlegel paddles, or something equally robust looking
Take on rocky ditches whether or not there seemed to be enough water.
Still be using a spud or one of it's contemporaries with several dents
and scars from previous epic ditches.
I'm allowed to say that because I used to be, in fact sometimes still
am, a spud boater (vary from the norm by not having a full face helmet,
and I replaced the schlegels with werners).
Did that help?
JIM
Sue Taft
shape i.e. kind of look like a rounded potato of the creek designs of
Europe. With the rounded shape and edges, there wasn't much to catch on or
pin with on steep creeks. The designs were also found to be pretty
forgiving for beginner paddlers- easy to roll. Prijon is credited with some
of the early commercial creek designs in Europe. The Topolino is a Prijon
design. Squirt master Jim Snyder also designed a spud-like boat called the
Slice in the late '70s. He gave it to Vladmir Vahna of Noah in N.C. to
produce as a new production design. Jim says that Vahna thought the design
needed softer lines i.e. more rounded, and so modified it to produce a boat
Vahna called the Jeti which became one of the first really popular short
spud boats in the southeast.
Sue Taft, author of The River Chasers.
Sue Taft
Larry Cable
>Prijon is credited with some
>of the early commercial creek designs in Europe. The Topolino is a Prijon
The Topolino is actually an Eskimo design
that was molded by Prijon more most of it
lifespan. The early Topo's were even marketed under the Prijon name by
Wildwasser in the US.
As a footnote, the Topolino is the longest continously manufactured plastic
whitewater boat. It was first made in 1980
and manufactured until 2002. Eskimo is currently redesigning these little gems
to update them and bring them into the 22nd
Century.
SYOTR
Larry C.
Oci-One Kanubi
rodeo boat", in Canadian whitewater magazines and it really perplexes
me. Why take a term that is representative of its original subject
and apply it to a new subject to which it has no connection or
resemblance? I nearly wrote a letter to the Canadian mag "Rapid" a
few months ago when they published an article entitled "Spud Boating"
that was about rodeo boats!
"Spud", as has been said elsewhere, is slang for "potato", and creek
boats (vaguely) resemble potatoes, so "spud boat" is a descriptive and
widely understood term. Why apply that same term to what are arguably
the absolute opposite in boat design?
-Richard
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Kegs <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message news:<m3ptp2x...@localhost.localdomain>...
Kegs
> I've recently begun to see this second usage, "spud boat" as "short
> rodeo boat", in Canadian whitewater magazines and it really perplexes
> me. Why take a term that is representative of its original subject
> and apply it to a new subject to which it has no connection or
> resemblance? I nearly wrote a letter to the Canadian mag "Rapid" a
> few months ago when they published an article entitled "Spud Boating"
> that was about rodeo boats!
>
> "Spud", as has been said elsewhere, is slang for "potato", and creek
> boats (vaguely) resemble potatoes, so "spud boat" is a descriptive and
> widely understood term. Why apply that same term to what are arguably
> the absolute opposite in boat design?
The only reason I can think of is that even rodeo paddlers still think of
the Topo as being a super short blunt ended boat, despite that fact that
is is only marginally shorter than my current boat (a Necky Switch).
The playboats that tend now to be called spud boats seem to be from a
distinctly different design school to more 'traditional' playboats like
the Switch Pyranha S8 etc. These boats I think have evolved from the
Pyranha Acrobat Dagger RPM and have got shorter with each generation
and lost volume at the ends, while gaining it around the Cockpit.
The 'Spud' boats have evolved from the , mainly UK, art of squashing
a topolino using a heat gun and weight to alter it's shape and allow
it to perform Rodeo type manoeuvres, a design school that also, IMO,
resulted in the Wavesport Stubby . If you look at a Spud-style playboat
while they have the flat hull and a drop in volume at the ends, similar
to what you would see in a Switch or S8 the drop in volume at the ends
is far less, and the ends don't tend to be as pointy.
Of course it could just be that someone went "How can you describe this,
it is stupidly short with quite a bit of volume, and it has blunt ends"
and his mate said, "so like a spud then, but you can do tricks in it"
--
James
jamesk[at]beeb[dot]net
If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?
Cutter
considered a creek boat.