Anyone in the market for a sternwheeler?https://www.denisonyachtsales.com/yachts-for-sale/willamette-queen-87-custom

@dougfir @W6KME @ai6yr @douglasvb @camless @sarae If only there were some sort of device that, I don't know, bounced sound waves or something through the water and measured how long it took for them to return and then calculated the depth, ideally on an ongoing basis as your ship moved. Someone probably should invent that!

@W6KME @ai6yr @douglasvb @camless @sarae @msbellows
If I remember Mark Twain correctly, part of the challenge of being a river boat pilot was the sand bars move around. You had to be able to read the water surface to know where the sand bars were each time you went through an area.

@dougfir @W6KME @douglasvb @camless @sarae @msbellows I don't need to hire small children with long sticks? That's disappointing.

@douglasvb @ai6yr @msbellows oh, I don't think we could make it pay down here

@sarae @douglasvb @ai6yr @msbellows does any of you have Pete Davidson’s phone number? Colin’s?

@wtrmt @sarae @ai6yr @msbellows I think they have had their fill of purchasing boats

@dougfir @W6KME @ai6yr @douglasvb @camless @sarae @msbellows Should have hired a surfer to pilot them.

@dougfir @W6KME @ai6yr @douglasvb @camless @sarae @msbellows Or a whitewater kayaker.

@jhavok @dougfir @W6KME @ai6yr @douglasvb @camless @sarae You guys are thinking about it completely wrong. You don't want a routefinder in a SHALLOW craft; you want one that's deeper than the sternwheeler so it gets stuck first.

I'm thinking either a fly fisherman in hip waders so when he steps wrong and they flood his loud cursing will alert the other captain to hit reverse, or a decommissioned Columbia River tug just because that compounds the transportation problem nicely.

@msbellows @dougfir @W6KME @ai6yr @douglasvb @camless @sarae Surfers and whitewater kayakers learn to read the surface telltales of shallow water. Or else.

@jhavok @msbellows @dougfir @W6KME @douglasvb @camless @sarae Kayakers? (i.e. so you don't get stranded on a sand bar?)

@jhavok @dougfir @W6KME @ai6yr @douglasvb @camless @sarae You guys are thinking about it completely wrong. You don't want a routefinder in a SHALLOW craft; you want one that's deeper than the sternwheeler so it gets stuck first.

I'm thinking either a fly fisherman in hip waders so when he steps wrong and they flood his loud cursing will alert the other captain to hit reverse, or a decommissioned Columbia River tug just because that compounds the transportation problem nicely.

@jhavok @dougfir @W6KME @ai6yr @douglasvb @camless @sarae You guys are thinking about it completely wrong. You don't want a routefinder in a SHALLOW craft; you want one that's deeper than the sternwheeler so it gets stuck first.

I'm thinking either a fly fisherman in hip waders so when he steps wrong and they flood his loud cursing will alert the other captain to hit reverse, or a decommissioned Columbia River tug just because that compounds the transportation problem nicely.

@msbellows @jhavok @dougfir @W6KME @ai6yr @douglasvb @camless lol clearly you missed the news story about the duck hunting guy who wore his waders in his kayak

it was quite the topic of discussion on the kayak club email lost I tell you what

@ai6yr @msbellows @dougfir @W6KME @douglasvb @camless @sarae To stand on the bow and read the water.

@msbellows @dougfir @W6KME @ai6yr @douglasvb @camless @sarae That would limit the speed of the boat to the speed of wading through the water. And if the guide lost his footing you might need to recruit another one.

@sarae @msbellows @jhavok @dougfir @W6KME @ai6yr @douglasvb The progression of this thread from "Hey, look at this sternwheeler YACHT" to "remember that one time a guy in waders got swamped?"

Grade A distraction from the dystopia. Thank you all

@jhavok @ai6yr @dougfir @W6KME @douglasvb @camless @sarae In whitewater, maybe. In flatwater my kayak grounds in <6" so it hasn't exactly made me alert for shallows.

@camless @msbellows @jhavok @dougfir @W6KME @ai6yr @douglasvb look we've got our big disasters and our little disasters

and then we've got the disaster that is kayaking in waders

which at least is one you can prevent