Both have challenges. A whitewater boat spins more than a touring boat, so it is probably easier to set the angle and recover once you lose it, but harder to hold the angle? Personally, I don’t do a lot of back ferries in my whitewater boat. For moving laterally a side slip is easier (onside/offside draw or sculling draw). A back paddle/back ferry is usually just long enough to let traffic clear in front of me - don’t want to run over the kayakers
Personally, I want a solo boat (whitewater or touring) that i can easily get over to my off side for cross strokes. A lot of the boats you list are too wide for me, but that is personal preference. I’ve never seen a Raven - interesting a 15’ boat with 3"/2.5" rocker.
The OT Cascade is 14’ 10", 34" midsection outside the gunnel, with 2.5" or a smidge more rocker. My former boat was a 14’ 7" Disco. While tripping in the latter, I used the back ferry to enter eddies often, especially early on as it was usually loaded over the gunnels with stupid amounts of gear. Mostly, this was in the 90’s before much of the lightweight gear made it out into the hinterlands where I lived. Imagine aluminum-framed folding chairs bungeed on top of multiple pickle buckets and military duffels filled with cast iron and full-size pots and pans (enough to cook for a dozen). Sometimes, all I could see was the head and shoulders of my bow mate. But it was fun. And often wet.
I learned to break into big, easygoing bank eddies (lots of these on Ozark rivers inside of bends) even with substantial loads. Since then, my gear has gotten much smaller and lighter, and now that I’m in the Cascade, even with a load, I don’t imagine that I’ll use the backset much in that situation, unless the eddy line is scary.
Carving as a general approach to navigating moving water: now that’s what I really need to work on.
I still pack like that - if there are no portages…
When I paddle tandem the gear tends to rise up over the gunwales. I have one of these Helinox camp chairs, but for a week of camping, I’ll take a big folding chair every time.
What he does that i have never seen anyone else do is to side-slip the boat to the offside using pries. In a narrower boat it is easier to use a cross draw. Anyway, he was an amazing paddler.
Interestingly, he never mentions a back ferry set into an eddy. At about 15:26 he goes through eddy turns, ferries and s-turns. He does a nice back ferry at about 16:30. I love the last run and swim he does at 24:00.
Good luck practicing those eddy turns - Just remember Uncle SAL (speed, angle, lean).
I paddled the Dagger Legend, Dagger Interlude, Old Town Appalachian and Swift Kipawa tandem (of course?) and especially the Interlude is not wide for a tandem canoe and not even that much wetter in waves.
Eck thanks for sharing the link, I’m probably more of a “9 out of 10 rule” person now than when I was in my 20s. Our assessment of risk, and how much risk we are willing to take on, often changes with our physicality, skill level, and age. Sometimes, I will scout a rapid that everyone else will run without scouting and sometimes the reverse is true. I’ve scouted rapids that I didn’t need to scout and I’ve run rapids I should have scouted. Mostly now, I dial it back, but occasionally I will still dial it up. If it is big enough to scout ( your looking at the tops of the trees and can’t see large portions of the rapid) often I will just start portaging right off the bat. On the other hand, If you can hit eddies, then boat scouting is a legitimate tactic and using a friend as a probe can also help you determine if you want to run a rapid without having to get out of the boat. My world is not so simple as just applying one rule. What I do on a given day, has a lot to do with how I am feeling, how well I am paddling, and my desire for excitement or predictability.
I had fun this summer, running the Peshtigo river at extreme low flow without scouting. I was in a ww kayak, on a personal first descent, running solo for just a few miles. Clearly, I made a bunch of 'bad decisions" but they all resulted in a good day. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it is okay to do that or that I am an expert. I will only say that I “own” my decisions and that it worked out for me in this particular instance. It wasn’t scary. It was fun, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t sketchy. So on occasional, I just don’t do what I am supposed to do. On the other hand, my bro pinned a loaded kayak on the devils river this year following my lead. I also thought that was good fun, and literally in some warped kind of way, enjoyed unpinning the hatched pakayak. Folks need to learned to live (or die) by their own decisions. Things tend to get a bit more conservative with a boat full of gear and open boats. I saw Cliff at canoecopia selling his books this year. I already own a copy but readily admit I haven’t opened it up in years. Lots of ways to do things and he has lots of great info. If I had to pick just one rule it would be: wear your pfd, dress for immersion, and boat within your skill set, oops that’s really three things.
Yup - there’s what you “should” do, and what you actually do. Personally, I rarely get out of the boat to scout from shore. If I do, it is probably to take pictures more than plan a line. Having said that, I’m pretty carful not to paddle over my skill level, I usually either know the river or am with someone who knows the river, and I am rarely far from civilization. In a loaded tripping canoe far from civilization I might make different decisions. Then again, rarely am I in a loaded tripping canoe far from civilization…
