River Raft Race  |
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|  We had our 27th Annual River Raft Race yesterday. My daughter will be old enough to join in the fun now and I wanted to learn a bit about it. This is the first year the leaders have been allowed to build a raft and join in on the race.
Each raft has to be hand made. We use inner tubes and wood or bamboo to build a raft. The leaders built a triangular raft with bamboo while the girls used a square design.
We had trouble finding tubes that were worth using or that held air. And ended up buying new ones. We tied them on to the rafts just in time to leave for the trip to the river.
We got there a bit early, but no one thought to try out their rafts before the race started. One group of girls climbed on their raft to find that the inner tubes did not hold them above the water! One of those girls got so scared she had to get off and stay ashore. All the rest of the rafts floated. We had to turn ours around backwards because our seats were too far forward.
We all got going and our other leaders had to stop and retie some of their bamboo. We had a couple of short pieces come loose a bit later which caused our back tube to flip up and we were sure that it would get hung up on the rocks in the rapids, so we stopped to retie it on. We got it all tied securely and got back on the raft to get going again and SNAP!!!! One of our pieces of bamboo broke in half!! Not a short piece either but the long piece that made up 1/3 of the stabilizing structure!We were done! But not quite, we dismantled our raft, tossed it in a rescue canoe and tubed the river instead. Now I don't know if you ever rode a inner tube down the river before, but it is not as easy as a raft or boat to steer. It took LOTS of paddling to get to the side of the river we wanted to be on at any point! Our arms also rubbed on the tube leaving nasty friction burns on the underside of each.
Also the tubes do not go down river as fast as raft or boat because you can't sit up and paddle it very well. Therefore we were VERY late arriving at the take out spot. So late in fact that they sent someone to look for us. He didn't find us but found a group of swimmers that had just seen us go by assuring them that we were fine.
All in all it was a great day and an exciting adventure. I can't wait until next year to do it again.. I am sure some of the girls will want to do the event and I KNOW I want to.
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Tubing on the river | | | | |
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1.  Eskimo (1828)
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5 years ago
| |  This sounds like a lot of fun, however things like this are now frowned upon in saftey concious U.K. I was on holiday (vacation) in Cornwall this year, and they had an annual Raft Race which had now been cancelled, because the organisers had to pay out a fortune in insurance, and the event had to pass and expensive health & saftey examination as well.
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 tammyr (3462)
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5 years ago
| | Oh it was loads of fun.The event is set up by Girl Scouts and we are covered under their insurance. Each raft has a safety boat that stays with it. Our poor guide, Buck had a time trying to stay worth the both of us though as at times we were 1/2 mile apart!lol | | | |
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| 2. ElusiveButterfly (9602)
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5 years ago
| |  Aside from being rubbed raw, it sounds like you had a great time. I have never been to one of these races. They used to hold them a bit further up north, not sure if they still do.
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| tammyr (3462)
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5 years ago
| | We did have a lot of fun. The burn is almost gone now. It itched a lot though. | | | |
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| 3. GardenGerty (35251)
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5 years ago
| |  It sounds like fun, I am guessing this was Girl Scouts, right? Is the type of raft you build specified by the rules? I know of someone not in scouting who built a raft out of recycled milk jugs with her third grade class. I bet that floated really well. Thing I hate about innertubing is the stem poking you. That hurts. I am glad you all survived. What river were you on?
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| tammyr (3462)
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5 years ago
| | Yes it was scouts and we had to follow guidelines to make the rafts. Each raft had to have at least one innertube for each rider plus one more. I am not sure of all the guidelines because I joined in after another person backed out. I didn't help with the first day of raft building.
'I do know that we could not use milk jugs or anything else that might pollute the river. They are very strict about the rafts to ensure no person or the environment is harmed.
I 9luckily) didn't get poked by the stem at all. These were actually shorter stems because they were made to float the river and not actually used in tires. So we were lucky. Some of the tubes were real truck tires and had the LONG stems that you couldn't avoid. We didn't have any of those tubes on our raft.
We were on the Hiwassee River in South east TN> It is not far at all from the town our scouts are from. | | | |
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| 4. organiclady35 (6026)
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5 years ago
| |  This sounds like a bit of an adventure. I assume that you were all wearing lifebelts and that you could all swim? What you call a tube as shown in your photo is what we call a rubber ring.
I can understand it would be even harder to try and get along the river inside a rubber ring! Sounds a bit risky going through the rapids though! I assume you had someone to do a health and safety assessment before the event took place?
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| tammyr (3462)
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5 years ago
| | It is required that anyone on the river wears a life jacket or vest at ALL times. So yes we all had them on. This river is not a very rough one. Only class II rapids at most.
We call them tubes because they are the innertubes from Transfer/semi truck tires, but rubber ring works well too.
Getting down the river was not to hard, but at some points you had to get to one side or the other to avoid rocks or trees in the way. It was quite tiring to paddle when you are sloped inside a large ring. We also had single oars and if I had known this was going to happen, I would have brought my double paddle along!
I don't think there was any type of health inspection, but our rafts did have to be inspected before the race and had to pass before we could go in the water. Each leader is (hopefully) aware of any health problems that any girl might have that would affect her in any event. I am sure that each leader was careful about any health issues that could have caused a girl any trouble. | | | |
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| 5. gabs8513 (23372)
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5 years ago
| |  I am really glad that you have had a great Day I am even more glad to see you here as I have been worried I sent you an Email to see you where ok but got nothing so I am so happy to see you here today
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| tammyr (3462)
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5 years ago
| | Sorry to worry you dear, I have been very busy with many things scout related.I sent you a pm and will look for you e-mail.
We are getting started for the new year. I relaxing way to kick off our new year! Next year will be even better getting to build our own raft will be great! | | | |
| gabs8513 (23372)
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5 years ago
| | Its ok Tammy you know I worry when I do not see my Friends lol I am just glad that you are ok
Love and Hugs | | | |
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6.  theprogamer (7491)
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5 years ago
| |  Man that sounds pretty cool. Reminds me I've got to get out and raft again someday. That or kayak it up in the creeks. Better luck next year with the raft, I'm sure your daughter and her team will do better. Plus you can always find time to practice building and floating the raft. Also catch up on buoyancy principles.
Okay, stopping myself before I go into nerdspeak mode. Good luck with the next event. And you can always take some time to spend with the daughter and friends just to try out another raft or just to have fun in nature like you did.
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| tammyr (3462)
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5 years ago
| | Oh I would love nerdspeak as you call it. I assume you mean the stuff that teaches us new ideas and principles. One thing I love about mylot is the ability to learn from great people from around the world.
I have a small 2 man raft that we will hopefully get to take out soon before it gets too cold. I used to go rafting alot, but had forgotten how much fun it can be! | | | |
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| 7. Modestah (7912)
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5 years ago
| |  sounds like you learned a lot regarding engineering a safe and efficient raft for the next time around. What an experience, how fun for all concerned. sorry your raft broke, but think it is great that you continued on and improvised as necessary.
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| tammyr (3462)
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5 years ago
| | I didn't get to help with the construction of the frames. The two tires we were on were the two I tied on. They were on there good. We had to cut them loose. BTW Aa knife will be on my list of take withs next year, as will LOTS of extra twine.LOL | | | |
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| tammyr (3462)
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5 years ago
| | HI susan!
It was great. Even our adventure didn't darken the day at all. They have a duck race in a near-by larger town, but I have never been to watch or entered a duck. It is a fund raiser for something. St. Jude's Hospital I think. I don't know if you even have heard of St. Judes. They do a lot of pro-bono(?) with young children with life threatening diseases. They are a great cause.
I doubt we would be able to do a duck race although it sounds like something we would love. Our river is a bit o wooded and a lot of the ducks wouldn't make it. That would be littering and would cause some trouble for us.
Our event was not much to watch as most of the way is not visible to watchers and goes along private property. There were a few spots that some of the parents did set to watch for the girls to go past. They could only see them for a couple of minutes, but I am sure they cheered them on. No one was at those spots by the time we got there though. We were about 30 minutes behind everyone else! lol | | | |
| susaneverson (4945)
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5 years ago
| |  Thank you for best response.
If I ever come down south in the summer I will have to plan it so I can see the whole event. Susan
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| 9. susieq223 (1975)
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5 years ago
| |  I have never rafted down a river--always wanted to. I did finally get to tube down a river a couple of years ago. It was so much fun! You're right about being hard to maneuver, though.
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| tammyr (3462)
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5 years ago
| | I hope you didn't get rubber burn like we did! Mine is almost gone now. | | | |
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