GL: The wrong way

[Ralph Yost (home)]

Note that I have never made this trip up or down rivers in the spring flood. 
So I dont have personal experience with this case. But one observation 
appears obvious to me about traveling upstream during these spring floods in 
the presence of damaging objects ((trees, refrigerators, etc.) -

If a dead-head log, or other object, is flowing DOWNSTREAM at 3 kts, and you 
have your boat moving THROUGH the WATER at 7 kts, you have effectively 
created the possibility of a collision with that object at an effective 
speed of 10 kts. Your speed in the exact opposite direction of the object 
will be additive to the object in terms of damage effect. If you could see 
the object in time to pull back the throttle and bring your boat to a dead 
STOP in the water, the object might still hit you at 3 kts.

And of course the opposite is true if you were traveling in the same 
direction, downstream, as this 3 kt log but your boat were moving THROUGH 
THE WATER at 7kts - then your effective collision speed with the object 
would be subtractive...or a net of 4 kts. Now, if both boat and object are 
moving in the same downstream direction, and if you could see the object in 
time to pull back the throttle and bring your boat to a dead STOP in the 
water, the object could continue traveling at its 3 kts and be DEPARTING 
from you at that speed. Even if you couldnt overcome the following current 
and actually STOP the boat, if you could remove the forward speed THROUGH 
THE WATER, your collision with the object would be at minimal impact speed, 
or potentially almost zero, if your boat was floating along at 3 kts.

Just some food for thought about traveling upstream when objects are present 
that I dont believe some people may consider.
R.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob and Liz Stagg" <stagg10 at knology.net>

Although this usually allows the big stuff (trees, refrigerators,
> etc.) to get stuck on the banks, we still had a lot of trash in the water
> and some significant current.  With a slower boat you may want to wait til