Arkansas Canoe Club Forums

good point Tris....if we were totally dependent to reproduce our own replacement as paddlers....we'd be in trouble. Just look around at this community. I see the majority of paddlers with no children. Not just paddlers....as it does appear that caucasian birth rates are down with other ethnic groups increasing. Unless those other ethnic groups start to enjoy sports like whitewater boating....this has to have a negative (net loss) impact for the ongoing growth of this sport.

Too be clear....I am not saying there isn't ANY other ethnic paddlers out there....(I know we have a few within our own community)....but the overall numbers and percentage of representation in this sports is very small.

tomcat wrote:Too be clear....I am not saying there isn't ANY other ethnic paddlers out there....(I know we have a few within our own community)....but the overall numbers and percentage of representation in this sports is very small.

There was an article about this in the Jan/Feb 2008 issue of Paddler called "The Color of Whitewater".

Trismegistus wrote:
I love to paddle and love to share my enthusiasm for our state's marvelous works and wonders but if the door remains closed to new paddlers and the number of white-water paddlers continues to fall I won't mind finding silent emptiness and lonely experiences on our rivers and streams.

Signed -- The Lone Wolf

Tris does have a point here. Several of the really good boaters I know don't want new people crowding our creeks. So instead of recruiting, they enjoy the invisible sub-culture that is Arkansaw Whitewater.

Pay to play. When the economy is down, everything and everybody is down.

HELLO? Hispanic maybe only one

But for the rest of my people. They only want to drink beer, work on cars and make more babies. I think it has to do with education levels of Hispanics? hate to say this but it's true!

Victor Caballeros wrote:But for the rest of my people. They only want to drink beer, work on cars and make more babies. I think it has to do with education levels of Hispanics? hate to say this but it's true!

:) well...all that does sound like fun....all they need to do is add some paddling into the mix.

Hope ya don't mind if an open(minded)-boater chimes in here. I've been sitting back and watching the kayak market for some time now. I've even owned eight of them (all whitewater) down thru the years and still have four, one of which is now a C-1. And I've tried to keep up with the companies that have come and gone and the different models as they came out.

To start off, I will tell you that I have never purchased a brand new kayak. And also, I've never paid over $325 for one. Most have been in the $150 to $250 range. None of them were trashed. They were all in good to excellent condition. In some cases, I was the third owner. And the ones I resold, I got my money back on.

The problem with polyethylene, besides being relatively heavy, is that it is way too durable. Unlike Royalex canoes, a poly kayak can take a heck of a lot of abuse. Unless you are doing a lot of creeking, I'm thinking one kayak could last you for the rest of your life if you take good care of it.

Of course, most kayakers would not be satisfied with a Perception Dancer now. So if you bought one 20 years ago, you probably either sold it or it is hanging in the shed. And so it goes with all the other new designs down thru the years. I think the designers just ran out of new ideas to keep their customers coming back. So now you have a glut of well-designed boats out there that are making the rounds. I think most people would rather buy a good used kayak for around $400 to $500 than pay $900+ for a new one which is not any better design-wise, and in some cases not as good.

In my opinion, what the kayak manufacturers need to do is to offer some kind of a trade-in option. Either money off of a new product, or a voucher which would be good on a variety of other gear. I think a lot of yakers would rather trade in their old boat rather than screw around with selling it. And when the company does recieve the old kayak...RECYCLE! Don't let it reenter the market. Chop it up into a gazillion pieces and melt it down. Eventually, the number of used boats for sale would decrease, and new boaters would be more apt to buy new.

I might be oversimplifing things here, but I do believe that the ball is in the manufacturers court. They need to serve it.

Just my three cents worth.

Prater

If anyone has a perception dancer hanging in their shed, I want it.

Also... this one time... I saw a black kayaker at hell hole. It's true, Alahondro my Puerto Rican kayaking buddy will vouch (in broken english).

(I'm not making this us to feed tris's fire, this really happened and Alahondro exists.)

As a local barometer, what are the ACC membership number trends? Just curious how they compare to some of those numbers.

I think the economy may have had some effect over the last 2-3 years, but the bigger thing seems to be that there are more ways to cut the leisure pie. More recreational choices and a relatively stable population = smaller numbers in many activities. I understand hunting and fishing numbers have been falling as well over the last decade so it is more than just boating. We all have way more options to spend our leisure time, particularly for kids. There are now more sport leagues, clubs, and activities. With more 'organized' activities, the shrinking time left for self exploration is easy to spend on the internet and games and given the quality and accessibilitiy of those activities it is a rationale choice, especially when one factors in the time cost to paddle or spend time in the woods.

I genuinely feel for those that earn a living in this sport, and always like to see fresh new faces getting into this sport, but at the same time I am kind of glad boaters represent a tiny fraction compared to Facebook users or Halo gamers.

As a local barometer, what are the ACC membership number trends? Just curious how they compare to some of those numbers.


I agree with bmartin on this subject I would like to see ACC membership numbers too. This would really comfirm a 70% decline.

Also bringing new boaters on the water is hard due to video games and people thinking i'm crazy!

"If anyone has a perception dancer hanging in their shed, I want it.

Ditto. And top dollar if in good condition.

Look on the arkansascanoeclub.com opening page and it is right there.

If memory correct somewhere around 500 families.

The club counts by families, so pick your own multiplier to get a head count.

and, Cadron Boy, I sold my Dancer and Dancer XT.

But kept my cross linked Response (the last one NOC had in their inventory) and still use it several times a year. A great kayak for runs like Middle Fork of Salmon etc. Fast, handles the big stuff well and room to stuff lots of layers back in that long stern.

A Savage spanke wrote:Also... this one time... I saw a black kayaker at hell hole. It's true, Alahondro my Puerto Rican kayaking buddy will vouch (in broken english)

Two of the better creekers I know are not caucasian. Ryan Center is 3/4 sasquatch. Scott Roach is 100% leprechaun. Most whitewater paddlers are more than 50% bulls*** (greater than 75% for the RBF). I'm half catfish.

We're all paddlers. Who cares?

- Fish

Fish wrote:

A Savage spanke wrote:Also... this one time... I saw a black kayaker at hell hole. It's true, Alahondro my Puerto Rican kayaking buddy will vouch (in broken english)

Two of the better creekers I know are not caucasian. Ryan Center is 3/4 sasquatch. Scott Roach is 100% leprechaun. Most whitewater paddlers are more than 50% bulls*** (greater than 75% for the RBF). I'm half catfish.

We're all paddlers. Who cares?

- Fish

nobody was "caring" in that sense Fish....it was a discussion about the demographics of and decline in participants.