I have decided to do a history essay on the history of freestyle/squirt, I need an individual who caused a big change in the sport to focus on.

I have decided on Jim Snyder, but am open to peoples opinions.

I will be looking at the evolution of boats from slalom up to modern day squirt and freestyle boats, the influence on design and shape and who brought the changes about - I know early on in the sport it was Jim Snyder, but who has chasnged things most recently?

Is it Corran Adison, Pete Astles or someone else - maybe EJ/Ken White?

I am interested in the competition as well - the point system / when it changed in Sort 2001 (With the clackson) and how it changed when things went aerial.

Any information is great and recommendations on books / websites or anything really, would love to see some picsa as well : )

Have already got -

Art of freestyle, playboaters handbook, Jim Snyders website & PS composite. Playak is good for boat pics and stats

Thanks,

Jay

How about the \"rivalry\" between Corran Addison and Eric Jackson. They both have very different views on how boats should be styled for playboating. Corran going with very Sharp edges and Jackson going with a more user friendly version.


Also talk about how it started at Hell Hole doing pirouttes and now you can do tricky woos, donkey flips, and others

or for squirt look into Eric Zitzow and his Angst kayaks very cool boats

Corran was the first to commercially introduce the flat bottomed, hard edged kayak with the Savage Fury. He had tried to do it while at Perception, but they wouldn't let him.

When he started with Riot in 1997, people were still laughing at the concept of flat bottom, hard edge kayaks, saying that they were never going to work. He already had the production Hammer out, and at teh Worlds in 1997 on the Ottawa he had some prototype Glides that were designed specifically to flat spin easily. There was much debate and the flatspin was reduced in point value because the Glide could do it so easily and nobody else' boat could do it as reliably.

It basically took until EJ radically changed his last X prototype to include a flat bottom for people to realize that there was some merit to the idea. Now that two large companies (Riot & WaveSport) with two big name pros/designers (Corran & EJ) the average kayaker started to warm up to the idea of flat bottomed boats with hard edges that could make flatspinning easy.

Corran also was the first one to figure out how to reliably get air blunt. Actually, he is credited with inventing the blunt. I saw him at Chambly Rodeo explaiing t the judges what the air blunt was. He went out and did many of them each session, by butt bouncing into the move with his prototype Disco (1999 or 2000 I can't remember which) Now, the majority of the freestyle kayaks are made to butt bounce air blunt.

He has been pushing the concept of carving, real carving like a surfboard or snow board for a long time now too. He has had many prototype boats that never wen to production because \"carving\" was a foreign concept to many paddlers for many years. Again, it took another manufacturer to kind of back him up by doing something similar; this time Necky. Necky comes from an ocean heritage so they were familiar with wave skiis and surf kayaks already. i suppose that they saw what Corran was doing and realized that it was time to use what they knew about surfing and apply it to their kayaks too.

I'm talkking alot about Corran because I have known him for 9 years and we talk alot about design. I got my first job with Riot because I was designing a boat in fiberglass and decided to start bouncing ideas off of Corran.

I hope this helps you with some of your project. There is lots to the story out there. Good luck.