remembering the Hurricane (smalls falls, Maine)

In the summer of 1996, Ted DeVoe and I were local pro paddlers for Prijon. The hot boat at the time was the Hurricane. It was a fantastic boat; high performance surfer for the time and a fair creek boat too. It was very fast.

Ted is also a very fast paddler. He was too fast on the day this photo was taken. His aggressive paddling style made him cut the corner a little too late and he broached with his bow on the center rock and his stern on the river-right bank. Looking 25ft down to the bottom of the drop he yelled "what do I do now?!?"



Mark Gibson performed a rope-assisted wade out to the center rock where he and Ted decided the best option was to just throw the bow off and hope for the best. It worked out fine and Ted ended up on a perfect line as you can see in this first picture.

Below is a photo of me running the drop that immediately follows the big one. The photo was taken by a newspaper reporter who happened to be just downstream that day. Ted is in the foreground waiting, and Dave Caruso is climbing up the rocks on the side.



Note: sorry about the poor quality. I just found these photos while cleaning out some stuff in the closet. Since I don't have a scanner I could only take a picture of the pictures.