TRENDS
MERGERS AND AQUASITIONS. PHOTO: JENS KLATT
WHITEWATER TRENDS
BLOSSOMING RACE SCENE The most established race in the sport, the annual Green River Narrows Race, sees participation continuing to increase. “We see, on average, 10 to 15 new racers each year,” says co-organizer Chelsea Grace. “It’s grown from 63 racers in 2006 to 165 in 2014.” Many other races across the continent are contributing to an
increasingly lively race scene: The Whitewater King of New York series hosts four annual races in the Northeast, Idaho’s North Fork Championship goes into its fifth year in June and home-grown races, like Quebec’s Neilson River Race, continue to pop up across North America. Gear companies are taking note: Dagger's Green Boat was released in 2008, and in 2015 Jackson launched their Karma Unlimited. Pyranha has come to market with the 9R and Dagger's new Nomad coincidentally also falls under the nine-foot limit. New this year is Werner Paddles’ Odachi, a blade built for speed. It
isn’t meant as an all-rounder, says marketing manager Danny Monogo. "The area where we see the most energy is racing. Lots of people make great slalom paddles, but they're not neccesarily making the transition to racing on some of the hardest whitewater in the world," he says.
WHITEWATER RESTRUCTURE Confluence Outdoor, parent company to whitewater brands Wave Sport, Dagger and Bomber Gear, announced in July that they would cease distribution of Bomber Gear apparel and shift the Wave Sport brand out of North America to focus on the European market. “We have achieved our stature as one of the oldest and most successful paddlesports companies by continually evaluating our strengths and prioritizing our efforts to deliver what the consumer is asking for,” wrote Confluence President and CEO Sue Rechner. Press releases on
Bombergear.com and
Wavesport.com say both
brands will honor existing product warranties. Wave Sport employees and athletes will be absorbed by other Confluence names, as the company puts more energy into whitewater kayaks through the Dagger brand. Another company seeing major changes this year is Liquidlogic,
which, along with Native Watercraft, announced a new partnership with Hurricane Aquasports.
172 WHITEWATER || Annual 2016
CONSOLIDATION, COMPOSITES AND SPEED. HERE’S WHAT’S HOT FOR 2016 “A move like this always brings up fun conspiracy theories in our
industry,” wrote Shane Benedict, one of Liquidlogic’s founders and managing partners, in a post on
Liquidlogic.com. “The change does not mean we will only make fishing kayaks and rec boats, I am in this business to make whitewater boats.” Liquidlogic co-founder and brand manager Woody Callaway told
Rapid Media the brand will stick with a direct-to-consumer sales model for their core whitewater products.
THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF COMPOSITES Composites are breathing new life into kayaking and canoeing this year. The carbon craze isn’t new to the freestyle kayak scene, but it is picking up pace. Take the 2015 ICF Freestyle World Championships, for example. All men’s category finalists were in carbon boats, as were two of the athletes on the women’s podium and even more in the junior and C1 categories. “Composites give me a little more confidence in a competition
like the Worlds, where I have to go move to move in order to get a high enough score to do well,” says freestyle world champion Dane Jackson. “They make it easier to go fast and hit each move every time.” On the open canoe side of things, companies continue to develop
lighter, stronger and more durable materials. Nova Craft’s new TuffStuff tandem canoes are standing up to tests of strength, including being dropped from the company’s 100-foot-high warehouse, and being test- driven down low water rivers by Rapid Media staff hitting every rock— intentionally, of course. Nova Craft started production of their solo Ocoee canoe in TuffStuff this fall. The brand new Echoee—an ultralight composite Ocoee hull made by Andy Convery of Echo Paddles—is getting lots of attention on Rapid’s home rivers where we’ve been test paddling it. "I feel like the death of Royalex may end up being the evolution of paddling, taking us back to skill and precision rather than just bashing our way down rapids,” says Convery. The Echoee is just the beginnning. We expect to see many more of our favorite whitewater hulls in composites in the near future.
Emma Drudge is the editor of Rapid magazine.
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