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Kent Ford’s Blog

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Every type of Boat

This month I paddled many different craft… reminding me that it isn’t about the boat… (not about the bike…) It is about messing about in boats.

>Sea Kayak

>SUP

>Downriver Kayak

>Tandem Canoe on Flatwater with my wife

>Marathon Canoe

>Whitewater Dory (65 miles of the San JUan River in 24 hours)

>Slalom Kayak in Slalom gates

>Slalom Kayak on Flatwater

>Slalom C-1 in Slalom gates

>Whitewater Solo Canoe (on a Class II river we estimate hadnt been run in 15 years. An overnight trip of 28 hours, 40 miles, and hundreds of strainers. Sorry I can’t tell you where.)

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Beijing Olympic report

Update from the Canoe Kayak Slalom event 

I am working as an announcer for the whitewater slalom canoe kayak event here in Beijing. In Olympic parlance this is “sport presentation” for BOCOG, which is Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games. Sport presentation is responsible for public address announcing, music for spectators, scoreboards, videoboard, ceremonies, etc. I am working the slalom venue as the english public address announcer, and also doing a helmet camera for BOB, which is Beijing Olympic Broadcast, which provides feed to all international broadcasters including NBC. 

If you saw any of the footage, which is always tough to catch, I was the one with the helmet camera tipping over! Long story, but I was in a borrowed C-1 (which normally would be very customized for stability) with fairly limited access to the water. After all the Olympics is for the true athletes, not the “has-beens” like me. 

It is a stout manmade river! 100 Feet per mile drop, and 600 cfs. Stout whitewater worthy of the attention of any advanced boater. Add the slalom gates, tricky diagonals, and normally surgy feel of an artificial course, and you have a worthy olympic venue. 

There are now a number of streaming videos available: C-1 heats and finals, C-2 & K-1W heats, a Scott Parsons interview, etc., available at: http://www.nbcolympics.com/canoekayak/video/index.html Note, however, that you will need a VERY fast internet connection to view (I can’t, with the slower kind of DSL). And dont even try without Microsoft IE, or it all locks up. 

Behind the scenes I have been largely responsible for bringing the Chinese announcers up to speed on kayaking. The folks I am working with are young, keen, and lots of fun. They have been studying the sport (in a book sense) for over a year, so they knew the stats on athletes better than I did! 

I did get to see the dress rehearsal of Opening Ceremonies (amazing- 14,000 performers), one evening of Track and Field (5 ring circus, awesome), and some rowing events. After the games I am going down to Yunnan to do a bike trip through Tiger Leaping Gorge of the Yangsee. Anyone ever paddle there?

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Green Business Roundtable

It was my sit-up-in-the-middle of the night idea… doing a better job of networking the environmentally concerned part of our community. 

When I launched it, I had no idea if ten people would show up. That was back in 2002, here in my hometown of Durango. Now we have an average of 100 attendees per monthly luncheon meeting, making us the largest business “club” in town.  

In short, the Green Business Roundtable helps INSPIRE, EDUCATE, IMPROVE and NETWORK the business community on environmental issues through a monthly lunch networking event. Through gentle peer pressure, we aim to improve our individual and company contributions to sustaining the environment. 

Green Business Roundtable

To elaborate, the idea is to mimic the systems used by Rotary and other service clubs to influence the community. The idea is simple:  
*We gather to enjoy lunch and network with other conservation minded business leaders.  
*We want to improve our own and our companies contributions to sustaining the environment. So hopefully we can exert some good peer pressure on each other to take back to work. 
*We want to improve our voice in the community. 

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Healthy Whitewater

(post from 2007)

The health of whitewater sport is a topic central to the annual  Whitewater Symposium. This year it was the best ever.   Easy logistics meant that the leaders of whitewater sport had lots of time to focus on ways to improve the health of whitewater sport.  The optimistic attitude was pervasive.  The recent slip in whitewater kayak sales might prove to be like the dot com bust of 2001… people still use the internet don’t they?  Rivers are going to be the same.  The allure of flowing water will always be present in rivers, and entice new people to explore its currents.

The symposium should take credit for many positive changes in the sport.  In the years of the first symposiums (2001,2002), there was great concern that large guys, smaller women, and kids could not find an appropriate boat.  Now we have companies that excel in offering each.  For a while it seemed as though the entire sport was nothing but extreme imagery playboating.  We’ve still got a lingering extreme image.  But among the leaders of the sport there is more widespread understanding for the need to balance that image with the smiles of accessibility. Now the waterfall image is seen as eye candy, rather than representative of what our sport has to offer.

Every one of us is in the drivers seat for this awesome sport. We need to take newcomers under wing. Make them comfortable in a stable boat on Class II. Provide them a realistic progression to learn- with Class II-III as a suitable goal.

This year at the symposium there was consensus feel that we can put our best foot forward for whitewater sport.  Widespread backlash has begun to diminish the negative vicious banter of anonymous internet forums. In its place are more personal blogs with a positive message welcoming newcomers. Gone are those who promote one branch of the sport to the exclusion of another.  River runners will feel at home again.  Some have likened our situation to that of skiing.  When snowboarding came along, skiing had a few years of turmoil, then figured out how to make everyone feel at home on the mountain.  We are in the process of doing that on rivers!  The great divide between whitewater rafting, inflatable kayaks, canoes, and whitewater kayaks is blurring.

And the imaginative programming that is on display in whitewater sport is mind boggling!  No lack of kids in the outdoors in whitewater!  Many towns have thriving kids kayak programs.  Alzar,  WorldClass,  New River traveling high school academys focus on rivers.   Girls at Play thrives.  Team River Runner connects wounded vets returning from Iraq/Afganistan to our positive communities.  First Descents makes a wish for cancer battlers.  World Kayak promotes homegrown events focused on the social aspects of paddling.   And we have a sense of where we’ve been (shameless plug for The Call of the River).

More than ever, whitewater paddlers are putting fear on the table for discussion.  Addressing the potential fears makes it easier to learn whitewater paddling!  The best instructors know and apply this- making it possible for more people to enjoy river time. Secondly, learning to paddle whitewater is the best training ground for handling fears in other parts of your life.  Paddlers are confident, bold, respectful, and fun.  These are all skills refined through paddling.

We can all do better at properly helping newcomers. Lets share the fun of exploring flowing water. For me that means emphasizing the great people, stunning scenery, and dynamic flow you can find on easy water with a careful learning progression.

Some other posts on the symposium:

James MacBeth’s World Kayak Blog Post

Heather Herbeck: A coming together of creative minds

Rob Terry’s Adept Descents Blog

Janet Cowie Organizer Message 

 Photos from the 2009 Whitewater Symposium go to www.adamducomb.com

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Paddling while speaking

Here you can watch me teaching the spectators at the Athens Olympics. This takes place just prior to the forerunners, and is part of pre-event training of the spectators. I found it to be quite a challenge to run the Olympic course (not to mention the gates) while trying to explain what was going on. The added complication was waiting for the greek translation while setting up in the eddies for the next moves.

kent ford on the water athens from Kent Ford on Vimeo.

Roughly same footage located at: 

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Whitewater Innovation

I recently (now way back in 2010) had opportunity to speak about kayaking at the “MIT Innovation Lab”- which is an academic and industry think-tank and annual seminar series on how innovation happens.  Participants include researchers from companies like Google, Ford, General Mills, Siemens, and academics interested in this field from MIT, Harvard, and universities in Copenhagen and Lisbon. Eric Jackson and Corran Addison were also presenting on the evolution of paddlesport.

MIT innovation lab professor, Eric von Hippel, describes the new wave of innovation this way:  “Creating complex products with limited manufacturer involvement is a growing phenomenon! Imagine product development without manufacturers.  Today’s user innovation communities are making that idea increasingly real. Open-source software projects, among others, have led to innovation, development and consumption communities run completely by and for users.” 

The central idea is that “open-source” design by users is opening entirely new possibilities in traditional manufacturing.  You perhaps have heard of examples from the computer world:  the internet browser Mozilla Firefox, Ipod Apps, Google Apps, the e-commerce platform osCommerce, and the highly successful GNU/Linux operating system.  Ford motor company’s “Sync” dashboard device is enhanced by user innovation.

This kind of “user innovation community” has a great case study in whitewater kayaking!  So whitewater boating is a hot topic of interest for researchers and economists.  My role was to show excerpts of my film, “The Call of the River,”highlighting the periods of strongest user innovation: wood and skin boats from indigenous cultures, homemade fiberglass boatbuilding of the 60’s and 70’s, and the squirt kayak to rodeo kayak evolution of the 80’s and 90’s.

Curiously, due to the expense of rotomolded plastic manufacturing, one could argue that the user innovation community in whitewater is much smaller now than 30 years ago.  But I can think of lots of innovation that still happens:  for example moves on the river still are limitless.  Communication among boaters is expanding with new internet tools and applications.   In addition, people are taking to the river in more unique ways…  standing, swimming.  What do you think will be the next frontier of kayaking user innovation?

Eric von Hippel elaborates “These user communities have an advantage over the manufacturer-centered development systems that have been the mainstay of commerce. Each using entity, whether an individual or a corporation, is able to create exactly what it wants.  It need not rely on a manufacturer to act as its agent. Individual users in a user innovation community do not have to develop everything they need on their own but can benefit from others’ freely shared innovations.”

At the recent MIT Innovation Lab, following the whitewater kayaking case study was an entirely different case study- the 3D Printer community. Imagine a printer not printing from ink, but printing from a glue gun spitting plastic in three dimensions!  You don’t need special glasses to see these.  They are actual objects, simply formed on the X, Y, AND Z axis from a machine only slightly bigger than the conventional paper printer on your desk.  Break a plastic widget that you need?  Download the design (free/open source of course) from the internet and print your replacement part!  Visit reprap.org or makerbot.com for examples.  The idea is commercially available for rapid prototyping for industry- with machines costing upward of $300,000.  

But recently, the 3D user community has lowered the cost to just over $150.  At the lab, we saw a handful of example products, including a whistle, complete with the ball rattling around inside.  These “printing” machines can even fabricate the parts to build a new 3D printer.  The field is currently dominated by some pretty nerdy/ brainy users, but one can imagine limitless possibilities once the process becomes a bit more refined.  

In a curious twist, the first 3D printer reference I ever heard was from Bill Masters- founder of Perception Kayaks.  He patented the idea back in 1987, visualizing a spit wad shooter of plastic.  This was well before computing muscle had caught up enough to make the process a reality.  So far ahead of his time, Bill was not able to commercially capture the potential of the 3D print process.  But he proved that kayakers can be formidable innovators.  What innovates in your mind?

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Reading Whitewater History

In preparation for the release of my historical documentary on whitewater canoeing and kayaking, I have enjoyed some fine books that nicely capture segments of paddlesport history. 

Most exhaustive, and most important, is Sue Taft’s “The River Chasers”. This book is the product of tremendous research, and nicely details key moments of whitewater history in the US. It is an important document, particularly so because of the thoroughness of the detail. www.theriverchasers.com  

Lots of fun is Doug Ammons book, “The Laugh of the Water Nymph.” This was printed in 2005. It contains 22 adventure stories, from jungle rivers that disappear underground and cast off huge waterfalls, to glacial rivers running through the wilderness of northern Canada. The book was voted “One of the best outdoor books of the year” by the National Outdoor Book Awards. See http://www.dougammons.com/ 

I am a huge fan of Renny Russell’s book “Rock me on the Water”… Picking up where its predecessor—the bestselling On the Loose —left off, this reflection revisits the physical and spiritual terrain that shaped two brothers’ lives. Consumed by a passion to fully experience the western wilderness and to navigate untamed—and unpredictable—waterways, Terry and Renny Russell set out to travel down the Green River in Utah. Interweaving the past and present, this vibrantly illustrated meditation documents the metamorphosis of Renny’s psyche, the natural environment that has sustained him, and ultimately his redemption. https://performancevideo.com/rock_me_on_the_water  

The Most recent release that hits on whitewater history is Will Leverette’s “A History of Whitewater Paddling in Western North Carolina” From the Chattooga to the Nantahala, the thrilling rapids and unparalleled scenery of Western North Carolina’s rivers attract thousands of whitewater paddlers each year. Ride along with Will Leverette as he recounts the exhilarating adventures of paddling’s pioneers from 1923 to 1980, both those who started the craze and those who guided it farther downstream. People love the photos and stories of summer camps. Find it on Amazon. 

I think my favorite, best written book is by Doug Woodward “Wherever Waters Flow”. He relives his role as canoeing stunt man on the set of the Deliverance. But more importantly he Paddles with President Jimmy Carter as he makes a “daring” open canoe run of the Chattooga’s formidable Bull Sluice Rapid. And Doug shares a wide range of family adventures, that together, help one remember and understand the precious start to whitewater sport. http://www.headwaterspublishing.com/ 

I wouldn’t have understood Walt Blackadar as well were it not for “Never Turn Back”. Now I understand better how his accomplishment on Turnback Canyon was the river equivalent of the first ascent of Everest, and when excerpts from his Alsek journal were published in Sports Illustrated, he became an instant sensation. He was at the top of his sport at an age when most athletes are long retired. http://www.ronwatters.com/NTB.html 

I also quite enjoyed Richard Bangs “The Lost River: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Transformation on Wild Water”. Of course I had heard of his SOBEK expeditions, and adventures, but I hadn’t realized how close to my original home in Washington DC Bangs had his start. Available from Amazon or http://www.richardbangs.com/ 

Those reads ought to keep you busy, while you await the release (soon I promise) of “The Call of the River”

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Rolling with a paddle float

A recent letter we received: 

Hi, I enjoy watching The Kayak Roll video that I purchased from you.  I can roll, but lacking confidence and being consistant. I have seen paddle floats used in sea kayaks to aid in rolling. In your expert opinion, is the paddle float an aid that can initially help in learning to roll a white water kayak? I have never seen anyone use one…perhaps fora good reason? IE: too much reliance on something that won’tbe there when out on the river.  Thanks for your advice.   Sincerely, Dennis

My reply:  A paddle float creates incentive and dependence on trying to pull down on the paddle, so while it works to get the boat upright, it is counter to what you want to learn in a successful roll.  That would be my primary reason for recommending against using them for rolling practice.

This is one of the odd attributes of learning to roll.  The motion is counterintuitive.  Kayak instructors are faced with this frequently, because moving the student’s paddle shaft through the rolling motion provides a positive  muscle memory but also provides the negative input of allowing the student to pull the paddle down to get rightside up.  This works with an instructor guiding the paddle, but not so well underwater on thier own.

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Shoulder problems for kayakers

Shoulders are the weak link in the paddling equation. I have simple exercises and information on dislocations and impingement syndrome below. For a more elaborate medical resource, check out the dislocation and rotator cuff pages from this Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine at the University of Washington information website

Are you just experiencing sharp pain, caused by wear and tear rather than one incident? Impingement syndrome is a sharp stabbing pain on the front of the shoulder, about an inch down. This is often caused by poor shoulder positioning (slouching), poor flexibility, and poor rotator cuff control. To avoid or relieve impingement syndrome, a common complaint of paddlers, it is important to stretch the shoulder, utilize proper posture and strengthen the rotator cuff muscles. On the bright side, impingement pain tends to respond quickly to therapy. Go see a shoulder savvy Physical Therapist for a few sessions and a quick recovery! (for me it was just 3 visits and I was as good as new)