Hey!

As I said, beginner. I'm from Croatia, Rijeka and in very center of my town flows a river. Rijeka means river btw. The banks of the river are man made so there are no eddies but there is a good spot (by my standards) when there is lot of rain. Here is the picture:



So my question is: how safe it is to run (for a beginner) and is it any good for playing?

Thanks

One more pic



P.S. I also have a video that would give more information so if you need it to be more precise in your answer I'll post it on youtube. FYI, it's really fast.

One more question; what would be the cost of making a play park here, nothing fancy just a few spots and eddies? Any ideas? I have that thought for a long time, making a proposal to the city but the thing is there is maybe 20 ww kayakers in Croatia and only me in Rijeka. Not really feasible I know.

Thanks

Hey there,

You say there are no eddies. It looks like there is one on river left. Where the two red arrows are...? Looks like a nice playspot. Just be sure that there are no dangerous weirs or anything like that below this spot. Wonder how deep it is? Looks alright

Thanks Adrian!

I figure now whats an eddy. I thought in terms of getting in an out of the boat type of eddy. Definitely need to learn terminology. Well I guess I'll need to seal launch from the wall or bridge.

The water is 1-2m deep. I'm not sure exactly wath does the weir means but configuration underwater is a manmade slope of maybe 10degrees and no obstacles.

Hope I'll send some pics sooneof me doing it. It want be nice to watch thou:)

Thanks

kayakasha!

nakedtzar wrote:

The banks of the river are man made so ...

Man made always worries me a bit!
Make sure there is no construction leftovers crap in the water.
Could be a good idea to take a look when the water is low.
Keep safe. I would prefer to have somone on the water with me. Then again never kayak alone on moving water.
Any way, it looks sweet on the pic, should be fun.
Enjoy!

Hi Rijeka

A weir is a man made \"wall\" in the river that sort of acts like a dam. Water flows over this wall and sometimes it can look like a 1-meter waterfall, when levels get higher it washes out. The danger of a weir is that the water makes a backwash. This backwash will keep you and your boat in it, and sometimes you wont get out of it with out the help of some one else with a throw bag.

So, first thing when you see a man made feature, be cautious.

What you see in your river is a hole. Although it is man made, it doesn’t look too dangerous, but it might be a bit sticky. What I mean by this is that it has a bit of a backwash as well, like I explained with the weir, so it might keep you in it for a bit when you tip over.

Because you are relatively new to kayaking, it might be a good idea to go on a whitewater course where they teach you about basic river safety.

looks sweet, make sure there isnt any rebar or other protruding objects that could get you in the middle of a loop. Also, since its a town run, the water is always a bit circumspect and i would check to make sure it doesnt have a lot of nasty junk.

I would say that for a complete beginer kayaker, even one who can roll, this river feature is too big to run. Hitting it in the middle will result in a roll, then a side surf, followed by a swim.

You will either paddle or swim downstream from this river feature and therefore need to have a place where you can get out. This is why everybody has suggested that you have a look downstream to see if there are any more dangeous river features.

For an advanced paddler this river feature looks a lot of fun. Paddlers would even drive a long way to play in something like that. If you could get eddy service with a car park not too far away people would visit you all the time.

So to sum up, only consider running this if you would also be happy to swim though it, as this could well be what you end up doing.

Have fun & keep it safe,

yeah, you might get trashed a bit in the begging, but ive always found that a good way to learn is thorugh freindly trial and error. however, this style is not forever, if you think getting trashed for a bit would scare you away from paddling for a bit, id practice on smaller stuff before playing with. its really just a matter of preference, if your the sort of person who doenst mind a little scare and can hop right back in, go fo it( if its safe that is) if your a bit more cautious , hold off or have a more experienced paddler check it out. As for the possibility of a play park, hard to say. If your town is already has already billed itself as a sort of \" outdoor town\" where peopel can hike and mountain bike and kayak, it might be worth a shot. If your town is already struggling for funds and could never turn itself into a whitewater destiaion, id say be happy with what you got.

Thank you all for reply. In an hour or so I'm planning to be there. My biggest worry was how much of a stopper that wave is. I've seen it many times on low levels and I'm possitive that there are no hazards like debris or metal armature so I'll give it a go.

I'm aware that you should never go on a river alone but as I already told you I'm the only one in my city (200.000 people) that does WW kayaking so having a partne on the river is hard unless you calculate bevers There are probably 30 that does sea kayaking so I wouldn't call this town an outdoor oriented.
Friend will be there taking photos so he can alert in case of emegencie. Lame but better then nothing.

Read you soon

kayakasha!

Sweet. I like your sense of adventure. Sure you'll be fine. Just use common sense. Post the pics as soon as you've got them...

Later

I didn't went out as I planned. I entered right river bank under the wave cause I thought that I'll be able to paddle to the eddy. Well I was wrong. I don't know is it undoable or I don't have necessary skills. I'm currently looking for some good schools, probably Slovenia as it is close and relatively cheap but as I understood their season is from May to October. Bummer

Well, I just wanted to inform you that I'm alive.

kayakasha!

Well you won't be able to play in that hole if you are a beginer but you could learn alot from observing and/or running it. Here are some questions to ask yourself before running any feature.

1) Is there a descent line?
2) Can I hit my chosen line?
3) Am I likely to get pinned?
4) Is the bottom hole deep enough?
5) Once in the hole will I be able to get out?
6) If I get trashed, can somebody rescue me?
7) What is directly downstream?
Am I physically/mentally capable of running this? (If your mouth has no saliva and you can't spit, it's probably not a good idea as you are in a state of shock and are likey to make bad judgments.

If you answer \"no\" to any question, or \"maybe\" to many questions you should not run the feature.

Now... from what I can tell is that the hole may be very sticky but you can't tell by looking at a picture. Usually three things I look closeley for are:

1) Is the hole very symetric or does it have kick to one side or the other? Man-made features can be dangerous because they can be so symetrical that they don't flush you out (a keeper hydraulic) or have left over construction debris.

2) How aerated is the hole? If the air bubbles are small (like marbles) and uniform, you will have a very hard time rolling or bracing as the mixture of water and air is such that your paddle has no buoyancy. The good thing though is that ususlly you can swim out the bottom if you get out of your boat. If there is more variation in air bubbles then you'll probably flush out soon.

Here is what concerns me from this picture:

1) The boil line looks tall which means it would have to swim against the friction of recirculating water and against the force of gravity to get out, unless you tried to swim down and under the foam pile to catch green water.
2) The hole doesn't seem to be slanted to one side or the other. So there may be no kick to one side or the other and you may get recirculater over and over again.
3) MOST importantly, the lead-in to the hole (angle the water is coming into the hole) is pretty horizontal. When a lead-in is not vertical, it tends to be much more retentiv. The water recirculating has more upstream velocity with angled lead-ins. More vertical current drops tend to be less retentive. The KEY is not how fast the water recirculates but from how far down stream does the water recirculate? The farther downstream the water is recirculated back and up into the hole, the more retentive the hole.

Okay so my final advice is I would probably run it. But for you, unless you can understand all that I have written, you are able to apply this correctly to this feature, and you have been able to properly answer the 8 questions before running a feature, I'd say keep learning, read books, get out on the water, take classes, get yourself to the point where you feel comfortable with your skills and most importantly your ability to read the river (which can only come from experience).

If you have any quetions feel free to ask. Also you can learn more and ask questions at my MySpace, FHI Kayak Group, page:
groups.myspace.com/FHIkayakgroup

Also useful to launch something (buddy's boat, big log, neighbours lawn furniture, etc.) down the river and see how it goes through something... this will give you a good idea of the 'stopping' of the hole, any recirculating things that might not be obvious, especially to a rookie.

ps... tie a rope if it's your buddy's boat you use...

Marry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Thank you all guys for helping out. I contacted a guy I know and next year he'll be my teacher and buddy on water. We'll do more river runing stuff but he is going to hook me up with some people doing rodeo kayaking so I'll cover that area too and I want be alone on the river.

Sorry that I was quiet for some time. There was an accident day after I went on that spot. Two guys went on the same river but 10km upstream on a double sit-on-top kayak and they went over low head dam. One guy died. They went there couple of times before but not on the same flow so I guess they didn't have experience and knowledge when they decided to do that. Like if I would go hang gliding without knowing the basics. So I had to explain to my mother in details what kayaking is, what happend to them, why it want happen' to me, etc.

I hope I'll be a good ambasador of kayaking here and that some comunity will be developed.

kayakasha!

low-head dam is the same as a weir

they are very dangerous

this tragedy might be able to be turned into a good thing if you are able to point out the difference between the super dangerous hydrolic feature at that low head dam and the scary looking,but \"less dangerous\" feature that you have taken a photo of.

You best bet for getting a whitewater park is to convince the town that they could turn a section of that low head dam into a play spot as a safety precaution. We are working towards something similar here in Connecticut, United States. There is a dam that has killed a few people, and even almost killed my kayaking friends' father a long time ago. It cannot be completely removed but we are working toward having it modified so that it can become a play feature and also so fish can swim upstream through it.

It's good to hear that you are getting excited about kayaking.
Where are you? North or south? I have friends from the country who go back every summer.