# Rant rant rant



## elkhaven

I cannot relate to your spray skirt dilemma, being that I don't kayak, nor have a vagina...but I do like your style! That was a first class rant in my book and I hope you feel better anyways!


----------



## soggy_tortillas

I do feel a bit lighter in the chest area, so to speak.

Thanks for listening! Sometimes a good rant is all it takes.


----------



## yakkeranna

I actually had no idea that "women's specific" sprayskirts existed. Weird. Marketing for "women's specific" unisex products is almost always a sexist shit show- have you seen these?
Amazon.com : BIC Cristal For Her Ball Pen, 1.0mm, Black, 16ct (MSLP16-Blk) : Ballpoint Stick Pens : Office Products

Anyway, I really like my bomber gear skirt, it's only ever imploded on me once, and that was in the front of the duo off a 25 fter at low water. If the tunnel thing is a serious issue, just fold it over?


----------



## soggy_tortillas

Haha, a thin barrel to fit a woman's hand! Good stuff. I'm going to have to invest in some of those pen's; these manly barrels at work are absolutely killing my grip (anaconda squeeze)!

The tunnels on the skirts aren't even that long or anything (I usually only have to fold it over about an inch or two, or let it act as a bustier below my bikini), I was really just marveling at the differences in design. 

The funniest part of my whole rant is that I actually went ahead and bought the Ace from Level Six... only to discover that I do need help putting it on! It's friggin burly!!!! Funny funny funny. Damn it. Those sexist bastards were right! But I think once I get it a little wet and stretch it out a few times, it'll spread over that big cockpit rather nicely 

I suppose this is a good time to admit that I like the small shaft on my Seven2 paddle too. It was probably made for women, who can't possibly handle a normal shaft with their frail little hands.


----------



## Schutzie

Schutzie loves this rant!
He wants to know about mean women.........

In any case, I think the reason why women's skirts are easier to stretch and use a bungee probably doesn't have much to do with possession of a vagina. 

I mean, I don't Kayak (I was after all not raised by wolves) but I've never seen a male use his ....... (insert vulgar term for penis) ......to engage his spray skirt. Not sure it's even possible. Perhaps experiments are called for?

Anyway I think the issue has more to do with the idea that most women don't have the same upper body strength as most men.

Now, me, I can't say that I agree with the idea, cause, you know, the women I ran with in the early 70's rowed the freight right along side the men. They did complain a bit more about the sanitation of the porta pots, and the lack of privacy overall, but as far as upper body strength they seemed to be a pretty hardy lot.

And my lovely wife, who I met on the river, regularly slaps me back into line even when I'm just standing around minding my own business. I can confirm that her upper body strength is at least equal to my own.

Now that I think about it, probably the reason I'm intrigued by the idea that women are "mean" relates to my wife's willingness to whack me one for seemingly no reason what so ever.

You know, just on principal.


----------



## yakkeranna

That brings up a good point. I have actually witnessed some of my male friends attempting to piss up through their skirt and out of their kayaks (It didn't work). For that specific male-only application, a shorter tunnel would be advantageous.


All brand new skirts should be pretty stiff and hard to put on your boat the first several times. You can stretch it out on your boat when you're not using it if you want.


----------



## soggy_tortillas

Wonder how efficient this little guy is... looks like it would be pretty applicable for your man friends looking for easy "evacuation"


----------



## Phil U.

yakkeranna said:


> That brings up a good point. I have actually witnessed some of my male friends attempting to piss up through their skirt and out of their kayaks (It didn't work). For that specific male-only application, a shorter tunnel would be advantageous.


Haha. Piss up through their tunnel? Nah, you're sposed to pull your skirt and its called fire boating...


----------



## soggy_tortillas

Why is it called fire boating???

Are they trying to extinguish a fire???

Is it emergency status- aka- "where's the fire?"

Is this some sort of game? Is it anything like the bar in town that has mini footballs strung across the urinals... practice your aim, make a goal, and relieve yourself.

This rant has certainly taken an interesting turn!


----------



## soggy_tortillas

yakkeranna said:


> That brings up a good point. I have actually witnessed some of my male friends attempting to piss up through their skirt and out of their kayaks (It didn't work). For that specific male-only application, a shorter tunnel would be advantageous.


Let's hope your friends were paddling boats with drain plugs, avoiding dumping their own urine atop their own heads.


----------



## yakkeranna

na it's because pee is super hot compared to river water


----------



## soggy_tortillas

Ooooooh....


----------



## Phil U.

soggy_tortillas said:


> Why is it called fire boating???
> 
> Are they trying to extinguish a fire???
> 
> Is it emergency status- aka- "where's the fire?"
> 
> Is this some sort of game? Is it anything like the bar in town that has mini footballs strung across the urinals... practice your aim, make a goal, and relieve yourself.
> 
> This rant has certainly taken an interesting turn!


Oh jeeze... Why did I ever post in this thread?  I always thought it was called fire boating cuz the stream of piss resembled the stream of water coming from a fire boat. This terminology and the mentality and for that matter the physical ability came from a bunch of teenage kids I was paddling with almost 20 years ago.


----------



## soggy_tortillas

Silly boys. I get it though... seems like it is a lot like the football in the urinal.


----------



## elkhaven

our local bar uses ice - it's fun to melt.


----------



## Phil U.

Put a target in the urinal of the elementary school my kids went to and a much higher percentage of urine made it to where it belonged... It must be winter on the Buzz...


----------



## soggy_tortillas

A friend once told me that when she was training her little boy to pee in the toilet, she'd put either Cheerios or marshmallows in it and they would play "Dunk the Cheerios." I guess some boys just never grow up.


----------



## soggy_tortillas

Phil U. said:


> Put a target in the urinal of the elementary school my kids went to and a much higher percentage of urine made it to where it belonged... It must be winter on the Buzz...


Dear god! I was just thinking about how much I am over the winter. Ready to get out and stretch that new manly sprayskirt over my big cockpit, take some deep strokes in some freshly melted snow...

My new Burn has been sitting in the living room since Christmas... the tree went away, the boat stayed. Every night before bed I sit in it for a few minutes... then in the morning before work, I do the same...


----------



## Phil U.

soggy_tortillas said:


> Dear god! I was just thinking about how much I am over the winter. Ready to get out and stretch that new manly sprayskirt over my big cockpit, take some deep strokes in some freshly melted snow...
> 
> My new Burn has been sitting in the living room since Christmas... the tree went away, the boat stayed. Every night before bed I sit in it for a few minutes... then in the morning before work, I do the same...


Awesome! The Numbers and Fractions are running at nice levels. Pick a day in the 40s or better and come paddle.


----------



## soggy_tortillas

I think Numbers is definitely a bit about my skill level right now... maybe Fractions though. Just makes me nervous boating a new, unfamiliar run in the winter. Not good at rolling, but good at swimming


----------



## Phil U.

soggy_tortillas said:


> I think Numbers is definitely a bit about my skill level right now... maybe Fractions though. Just makes me nervous boating a new, unfamiliar run in the winter. Not good at rolling, but good at swimming


That's smart. Do you paddle the Elk? Have yet to paddle it and was thinking road trip this spring with camping at Strawberry Hot Springs.


----------



## okieboater

Many decades of kayaking.

Tons of money looking for the ideal spray skirt.

I don't think there is such a thing especially since most kayaks need a specific spay skirt for a good fit.

I have had rand and shock corded skirts that were really hard to put on / off. 

I had one of the large cockpit Jackson creekers and happened by CKS in BV. Had a dry but super tight rand spray skirt at the time. End of season sale and CKS had Snapdragon shock cord used skirts from their rental program on sale. Took one outside and it fit like a glove, neoprene was a bit thinner than most and even tho it was super easy to stretch as I put it on, it did not leak. Bottom line, don't give up the search as one of these days you might get lucky like I did. This skirt has lasted and no doubt will continue to do so.

The older I got and the more low back pain the harder it got to get the spray skirts on long kayak cockpits.

Here is a method that worked well for me.

One. put the spay skirt on a large cockpit and leave it on between trips. I would push down the stern ends of the spray skirt, hook up a pull rope from the front loop to the spray skirt grab loop and finally get these tight spray skirts on a kayak and leave them on some times for weeks.

Two. some times wetting down the spray skirt makes it easier to stretch out to big kayak cockpits when you are inside the kayak. (you can wet down the spray skirt in the water before putting it on, or some may have other options)

Three. I used this procedure (after stretching out a spray skirt). Get in the kayak. lean back and get the back of the skirt pushed down into the cockpit rim channel, kind of pull it forward toward the bow and hold the sides in place with both elbows down on top of the cockpit rim.

Then roll the front lip of the skirt up a bit, put both thumbs together right in the front of the spray skirt.

All this takes some amount of practice. Then keeping the elbows down, rock body forward with arms acting like a lever to get that skirt front lip forward and over the front cockpit rim. Soon as the spray skirt lip fits into the kayak cockpit channel, use the hands to push the front sides of the skirt down into the cockpit channel.

Sounds a little complicated and I hope you can experiment a bit. Using the elbows to hold down the back of the skirt into the channels, rocking forward using the leverage of your body and arms to get the front of the skirt over the front cockpit lip and into the kayak cockpit channel seemed to help me.

Hope this gives you some ideas and ends up helping getting that spray skirt on a little bit easier.

Nice rant and interesting thread. Boated with a lot of lady kayakers over the years and this is the first good rant on this topic. Listened to a bunch of complaints over difficulty during the pee process in a tight wet suit. Less when womens dry suits with zippers came along.


----------



## soggy_tortillas

We've done a short trip on the Elk. We did the Mad Creek section, considered the lower. Super pretty and fun, very mellow, we definitely plan on doing some more this Spring, like from Hinman bridge down to Mad Creek. Above that, the Box is beautiful but way too much for me! By the time I was ready to take it on this summer, the water was too low to do the middle section. If you're going to make a trip over, consider camping elsewhere. Strawberry Park Hot Springs is cool to visit, and cheap if you want to rent a cabin or whatever, but it's about an hour from there to where you put in for the Elk. You can do free camping, pretty much right on the Elk River, on County Road 64 and 64A. Do Strawberry Park just for the sake of the soak, the cabins there are decent if you want to pay $60. Then you can do the town run and Fish Creek too if you're up for that.

Give us a holler if you do come up!


----------



## soggy_tortillas

okieboater said:


> Many decades of kayaking.
> 
> ...
> 
> Hope this gives you some ideas and ends up helping getting that spray skirt on a little bit easier.
> 
> Nice rant and interesting thread. Boated with a lot of lady kayakers over the years and this is the first good rant on this topic. Listened to a bunch of complaints over difficulty during the pee process in a tight wet suit. Less when womens dry suits with zippers came along.


Thanks for all that! I didn't really start this thread because I was having difficulty finding a skirt to fit my needs, more just to bitch because I'm offended that gear designers think women can't handle the stronger skirts. Not even particularly offended just questioning their logic. 
I'll definitely try your tricks of trade on the new one I got, though!


----------



## Phil U.

soggy_tortillas said:


> We've done a short trip on the Elk. We did the Mad Creek section, considered the lower. Super pretty and fun, very mellow, we definitely plan on doing some more this Spring, like from Hinman bridge down to Mad Creek. Above that, the Box is beautiful but way too much for me! By the time I was ready to take it on this summer, the water was too low to do the middle section. If you're going to make a trip over, consider camping elsewhere. Strawberry Park Hot Springs is cool to visit, and cheap if you want to rent a cabin or whatever, but it's about an hour from there to where you put in for the Elk. You can do free camping, pretty much right on the Elk River, on County Road 64 and 64A. Do Strawberry Park just for the sake of the soak, the cabins there are decent if you want to pay $60. Then you can do the town run and Fish Creek too if you're up for that.
> 
> Give us a holler if you do come up!


Yeah, visited the hot springs for the first time early this winter with my boater gfriend and came up with the idea of combining the springs and a boating trip. Probably wouldn't be looking to paddle the class 5 drops but would consider paddling from there all the way to the confluence with the Yampa. Do people do that bottom section?


----------



## soggy_tortillas

I think most people just get out at Mad Creek. My understanding (don't quote me) is that the whitewater isn't worth the complaints from the land owners (Maribou, I think, those rich mother fuckers) any lower than that. I know it definitely slows down a lot and I don't think there's many rapids. But I haven't done it and it may be something we're interested in doing just for the sake of exploration. We did see a group of yakkers by the highway, which is where it meets the Yampa.
If you're set on doing the hot springs/boating trip my suggestion would be to pair the hot springs with a town run on the Yampa. Then on another night camp by Seedhouse/Hinman to do the Elk. Everything below Hinman bridge (County Rd 64A) is considered a III.


----------



## findellw

Back when I lived there I boated the stretch from mad creek down a lot. My family owned land downstream of Marabou so I actually had a legal way to take out without going all the way to the Yampa. Never saw or heard of anyone else doing it due to the takeout issues. Here's a rundown if you're curious though.

Put in at the Christina public fishing access about a mile up from mad creek. Gradient picks up just above mad creek and has fun wave trains for a half mile-ish. Below that, fishing improvements made by the most recent owners of the may ranch made some good small play. Below that it is super mellow, but Marabou's fishing improvements have made some good play waves, a few of which get really good above 5000 cfs. There are occasionally barbed wire fences and tons of downed cottonwoods throughout. Overall, the run isn't worth it below 2500-3000.

As far as issues with landowners, the Marabou people only ever waved at me and once even let me hike back up at one of their waves. However, there was always a guy who lived in a log house right on 129 about a mile or 2 below mad creek who would yell, harass, and threaten me every time I went past, once with a shotgun. And this guy wasn't some rancher either. He owned maybe a half an acre of river bottom at most. Don't know if he's still there though.


----------

