Whitewater Rafting on West Virginia's New and Gauley Rivers by Jay Young

Author:Jay Young
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-11-09T05:00:00+00:00

“Outfitters in West Virginia sort of smile,” concluded Arnold, “because the state has done a really good job of helping the industry grow. They regulated but weren’t stifling. That’s not the norm.”

THE BOATS

Though Bob Morgan’s Turkey Raft was largely an evolutionary deadend in and of itself, the Frankensteinian little boat was actually ahead of its time. In his quest to build a functional, inexpensive raft, he didn’t just peg two innovations that would eventually change the face of whitewater rafting on the New and Gauley Rivers. He nailed them.

Morgan installed stern-mounted oars on his second Turkey Raft, which was a distinct departure from the western-style center mounts he used to push the first funny little boat down the Lower New River. Center-mounted oars make rafts more maneuverable by nature of simple physics—the pivot point is in the middle of the boat. Morgan, however, was seeking other advantages. Of the Turkey Raft’s first attempt on the Lower New River, Bob Morgan said, “I’m a canoer; I like people to paddle. Why can’t we have people paddle?”

It was to make space for those paddlers that Morgan moved his oars back. “That’s really where we developed the stern-mounted oar frame with people paddling in front,” explained Paul Breuer. “When he bought the old army-surplus bridge rafts, he put the frame on the rear. He wanted people to participate and paddle.”

Those bridge rafts weighed a ton. “They were vulcanized,” said Breuer, “and the seams were double. They were just incredibly heavy, but bombproof.”

When Breuer and other Morgan disciples opened Mountain River Tours, they brought that same stern-mount concept with them, and the technique quickly caught on in commercial West Virginia rafting. Of course, the vast majority of rafts on the New and Gauley Rivers today are pure paddle rafts with no oar rigs at all. Many former MRT guides, however, still prefer a stern-mounted rig as a hybrid that gives them more direct influence over the boat’s speed and angle but still involves others in the raft as more than just ballast.

“That ten-foot oar equals about three or four Norse paddles,” explained Doug Proctor. “So do you think you’ve got a lot more control?”

“The industry here was maybe 50 percent oars,” he continued. “Us, New River Scenic, Whitewater Information, Mountain River Tours, New & Gauley Expeditions, we were all running oars. And AW, Wildwater and NARR were all running paddle boats.”

“It somewhat defies science,” said Dave Arnold. “Meaning, oars are a great way to run a boat, but because there were more people running paddle boats than oar boats, there was more marketing that said people who run oar boats are weenies and wimps, and the only way to really do it is a paddle boat.”

Perhaps marketing that shames people into doing something that might be more dangerous than the alternative simply works. Perhaps paddle boat companies were running more guests down rivers than companies that used oar rigs and could talk the technique up to more people. Whatever the reason, the paddle boat momentum became a ground swell.

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