Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

Roughed up by the Rogue

Boat Building Brothers... and Sisters

I need your help. Last week I hit the Wild & Scenic Rogue and, as usual, it hit back! Most of my repairs have been boat-bottom "push-ups" from running the Rogue in low water. On this trip, however, we had water water everywhere. Four days of heavy rain caused the river to surge from 1,200 cfs to +3,500 cfs while we were ON IT.

I got slammed into the canyon wall at Black Bar and now I have a "push in" instead of a "push up" to fix. (if you think this looks bad, you should see the canyon wall - I think I moved it a couple of inches... ha ha)

Here's a little video - it explains so much!! Randy, I didn't get the Moody Blues permission, so I'll take this down after the "boat building community" is entertained a bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlypWLgj-ps

Please give me your clever ideas on pushing out the "push in" so I can fix it up and do it again... man I love that river - and this boat!!

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Permalink Reply by Will Kimball on November 13, 2010 at 12:15am

Man, I wish I could offer some clever ideas on repair their on your ding. Have you fixed it up yet, and if so, what did you do? I have also resorted to fiberglass for similar repairs like Dave Z recommended, but that boat was also a bit of a "beast" to your boat's beauty. (To paraphrase Jonathan Clarke's comment above) But I just gotta say that I really enjoyed the youtube video like the others that have replied! You are really using that boat for some great adventure. Like other posters, I am pretty humbled by the heavy stuff you are running there. Up here the runs I do are pretty tame with the occasional rock pick / sweeper avoidance that requires me to actually put down the rod (gasp!) and pay attention on the oars a little bit...

I gotta know what happened to that oar in the pic at the end of the video. Did that snap at Black Bar? Aren't you glad you carried a spare? Although, I guess you probably could've duct-taped that oar back together and rowed out those 20 miles on it, as handy as you are getting with duct-tape! (ha ha ha!) Anyway, great stuff there. You are definitely an intrepid explorer (exploder?)

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Permalink Reply by Greg Hatten on November 13, 2010 at 8:58am

Hi Will - thanks so much for the kind words about the boat and the video's. I've had a lot of fun sharing this stuff with "the community". I appreciate the encouragement... I'll keep it up as long as the boat floats.
I haven't fixed it yet - waiting for the wood to dry out - but I've got a game plan of sorts. I will document it with pics so if it turns out, folks will know what to do... and if it doesn't work, folks will know what NOT to do. The first thing I would recommend is "stay off the wall" in the first place!! ha ha.
Here's the "rest of the story" on the oar. When we went through Blossom Bar (notoriously dangerous Class IV), there was a drift boat "down" on the right side of the river - across from the Clamshell. (We heard later that it sunk the day before... ). Because of the awful weather (wind and rain and rising river), there weren't many people on the river and we saw this boats "contents" for the next couple of miles downriver (coolers, dry bags, etc).
I found the oar below Paradise when I jumped out of my boat to fish. Just a guess, but the oar probably belonged to the oarsman of the sunken drift boat which "might have" snapped in Blossom going through the Beaver Slide (very narrow rocky throat at the top of the rapid that likes to "grab oars")... with one oar at that point in the rapid, it's almost impossible to get left which is critical (it's hard enough to get left with two oars). If the boat goes right through there bad things happen. It's the same spot my good friend lost his boat last year.....

Anyway... not sure what happened but it became a pretty good discussion point around the campfire that night.
GH