He didn’t paddle. The whole time I was watching him I was screaming PADDLE! And not one throw rope at the bottom. Time for video and commentary but not safety.
There were 3 of us on the trip. I had run this section around a dozen times. We had safety set up on river right, throw bag. It is hard to have safety at the bottom due to the suck back. Remember this was around 30 years ago.
I like watching these old clips from the times with the pointy kayak designs. Nobody would go down there with kayaks like this today, they have changed very much.
Since this trip I have kayaked Futaleufu, Bio Bio, Tamur, Sun Kosi, Quijos, Jondachi, We also in 1998 paddled the Rio Claro section in Chile that Dane Jackson recently kayaked. Unfortunately GoPro's were not around then, and there is no river bank to pull out on.
Richard had probably around 10 years paddling Class IV. The main difference between his run and mine 12 months earlier was his stroke at the base. He did a brace on his left that caused the nose of his kayak to point river left. When I did the first successful run earlier I chose I forward sweep on the left to keep my nose pointed river right.
Hey Alan, thank you for sharing, this is great old video footage! Are you the guy I met on Saturday afternoon when you where watching for platypus while I was paddling the lime green half slice kayak?
