I'm a plymouth Uni student conducting a research assignment on 'why playboating has suddenly exploded in popularity?'

I was hoping that you guys could help me!

there are many reasons i can think of for example:-
1. the ease of park & play, no shuttle needed cheaper option, only one car needed etc.
2. is there an image factor involved? its very easy to \"show off\" in playboating as your only ever in one place, its easy for spectators to view your moves!
3. Were weirs for example Chertsey/Boulters summer alteratives to the low rivers in the UK, that grew in popularity which the launch of the 'Thames Weir Project'

Any input from you guys would be awsome because at the moment i'm only limited to the paddlers in my area! and i would be very apreshiative for a wideer view of this topic.

Many thanks,

mhoole

Coz it's more fun!

And maybe; shorter lighter boats, rocketing skill levels and kayakers trying to look as cool as surfers.

with the advent of super short playboats, many many more river features have turned into valid playspot (when longer boats would hit bottom), so the change in boat length turned all of these places suddenly into park and play destinations.

That opened up the possibility for quick after-work play sessions when time is limited. I've even run into a couple of people surfing for lunch.

Also, at many of these small places, once a boater has the basics down, they are a much safer way of training and improving (instead of just getting into more difficult whitewaer). There are vital skills to be learned in a safer (relatively) environment. I don't know how many times I've seen class III boaters spend the better part of a year (or even more) doing nothing but the rivers that are familiar to them while actually spending most of thier time playboating at small spots before they feel confident enough to advance to class IV or more. Especailly good if you find a super dynamic playspot that has nothing but a big pool of water behind it. Great learning.

Other than that, it's where the growth of the sport has been for the past 8 years, so the energy just tends to follow that. I have seen a big trend over the past two years of more people returning to creeks. So things are balancing out quite nicely.

Cheers guys this is just the kind of stuff i needed to hear! a variety of opinions & some new ang to research into, Brilliant! if anyone else has an opinion on this please let it be known.

Many thanx.

I only got into kayaking well after the explosion started but I see at least 2 fators:

1. It's really easy just to go and play for an hour or so. You don't need a buddy, you don't need a second car and you don't have to go from one place to another and you don't need so muh safety gear.

2. As you said, it looks really cool. I remember the first time I saw someone loop and I just thought it was so damn cool and every time I'm in a play park there's a group of people watching and quite often they leave saying they're going to try it, and I'm not even very good

I think it started too take off with the old school play boats.
Boats like the RPM & INA ZONE squirting and geting vertical.
Geting vertical is cool. Afetr that boats started geting vertical on bolth ends with cartwheels. The only thing better than going vertical is catching air with loops and arial moves. Now you can kayak 360 degres in eney direction it's like going from 2D to 3D.

Someone made an interesting observation the other day when I brought up the topic of this thread. The person drew a parallel between freestyle surface boating and squirt boating.
Squirt boating quickly became THE thing to do for a few years in kayaking. It was the hot new aspect of the sport that was changing on a regular basis as designers figured out how to make the boats squirt and cartwheel more easily and athletes pushed their own personal limits for swapping ends and getting mystery moves.
Eventually the people who were just riding the fad stopped doing it, and the ones who really discovered a part of the sport that spoke to them stuck with it and have continued to develp squirt boating in much more sophistcated and subtle ways, even now.

A side note: Corran talks of competitions in 1993 in which judges did not score moves made by some plastic boat althetes because the moves they were making in holes were \"squirt\" moves and not the ones they were used to seeing. This quickly changed and \"squirt\" moves like cartwheels were accepted and scored.

The same can be said for wave moves like flat spins. There was a bit of controversy as some designers like Corran continued to push the flat hulled, wave spinning boats (and ESPECIALLY the guy who invented the c1 \"Groove\", sorry his name escapes me right now, but it would be a key name to look up, Paul.....). Really the big controversy was how to score the moves in competition, but the important thing was that boaters were doing it, and more people wanted to learn it.

Super short spuds opened up small features,and high volume made them more retentive so they would stay in the hole.....

Freestyle has seen it \"hype\" peak, just like squirt boating did. That just means that the newness has gone away and now we are into a more mature refinement period in which those who really enjoy playboats still use them, while the people who rode the hype are onto other things.

It would be useful to get hold of some figures to back this hypothesis up. From the BCU in the UK? I think that you will find big regional and international variations too.

I have the impression that there are more and more people playboating but less people doing competitions - but that is maybe my blinkered perspective. Have competitions become too exclusive? That is what happened in slalom and it did them a lot of damage.

Have the impression that the manufacturers are concentration much more on their river-running and creeking lines than they were a few years ago when it was all about playboats. Maybe this is indicative of a change.

Playboating enables you to develope technique and have a great concentrated workout in a safe (usually) environment - its great for slotting into the working day - for those of us that still have to.

Croft wrote:

Playboating enables you to develope technique and have a great concentrated workout in a safe (usually) environment - its great for slotting into the working day - for those of us that still have to.

Yep, this is exactly what fooling around in a freestyle kayak (even on flatwater, such as the pond close to my home) is about for me: After a day's hard work and my daughter has gone to bed I simply enjoy a bit of playing and having fun in my boat.

Not that I am any good at it but I'll learn and I am enjoying the relatively confined spaces of my local pond. Something which is close to impossible with regular touring kayaks. Besides, it's fun when you're bowstalling and a few metres away from you a duck is doing the same thing, except he's looking for food

the internet probably has something to do with it as well. now that people can surf the net and chek out what other people are doing its amped up the communications thing to a whole new level. i know i get more psyched about playboating when i see poeple throwing down on wordl calss waves like garb adn skook over the internet, and can maybe learn waht their doing by watching.