Boys' Trip 2007

Cab-Forward Design

As our trip went on, our load got progressively lighter. Each meal, beer or soda brought made our canoes progressively more back-heavy.

This wasn't a real problem for me, because I started off nicely balanced, and I was able to adjust the load a little more than Darin and Greg were. But Greg was especially ass-heavy by the last day of paddling. With the first foot of his boat out of the water, it was difficult to slice through the river, and the term "shallow water" grew increasingly liberal by the day. On our last day, Greg decided that he could no longer tolerate the poor weight distribution and moved himself to the front of the boat. His weight was more evenly distributed than it had been all weekend, but he lost a little bit of control.

Hint to inexperienced downriver paddlers: The farther back you are in the boat, the easier it is to steer, but weight distribution needs to be considered as well.

Stay tuned for the next episode... "Not So Hard Anymore"