Whitewater Parks

[bt50]

Are WW centers/Slalom courses (i.e. Olympic section of occoee, WISP, USNWC, etc...) any good for finding spots to sink? The eddies are so strong and swirly it would seem like they should be but I've never heard of anyone sinking at a whitewater park.

Thanks.

[hunter.c.b]

I haven't specifically tried to sink there (or even been there in a few years), but I don't think that anywhere at the USNWC in Charlotte is deep enough for good sinking. I would suspect that's a problem for any fully man-made park given that no other style of boating really requires the depth that squirting does. Plus I bet the realm would be mega turbulent.

Again, haven't sunk there, but apparently there are some places to get dips on the Upper Ocoee: http://sinkspots.org/index.php?spot_id=70

[Noah]

Nearly all the whitewater parks on natural rivers I've visited had some downtime. Generally it is sinking in or behind the feature for a 5-10 sec drop, not many convergences though. I play in the Reno and Sparks WW parks here in NV all the time. There are five different spots in the Reno Park at different levels to get 5-20 seconds of downtime. All you can do is go out and play around, especially at different levels, two of the reno spots are only good between a 200cfs window. Fortunately that is what the average flow is most years.
Noah

[LadyLuckIsNotaDude]

I had a lot of fun testing out Charlotte's park. The left channel pour overs at the top are pretty good. Actually, those are probably the most fun features in a play boat too, considering the overall quality of the course's play features. The convergence between far left channel and middle left channel is decent and the far left channel has another good pour over.

One of my fantasies is to build a whitewater course with outlandish features. A loop de loop, river-wide whirlpool that drops through a spout and glass walled squirt seams. One of the squirt seams has a hidden cave, only accessed by swimmers and squirters. Can anyone help get this thing financed?