Okay, so it might not exactly be in Guinness. But raft-maker SOTAR recently established what it’s calling a “world record raft stacking” feat, placing 10 custom rafts atop one another and running Oregon’s Rogue River.
“We’ve never seen anyone else do something like this,” says SOTAR co-owner Jeremiah Lewman. “It’s gotta’ be a record.”
The brainchild of the feat was Oregon paddler Covey Baack, a former guide who also helped orchestrate a six-stack leaning tower of paddlers six years ago. “This was the next step and his idea,” Lewman says. “We ran about five miles like that through Hell’s Gate Canyon on the Rogue.”
On board were seven kids and seven “adults.” The bottommost raft, one originally built for parades, was nearly 30 years old, had no floor, and measured 25 feet long by 11 feet wide. Then they stacked three 18-foot rafts, the first one inside the bottom raft’s perimeter, on top of that, also without floors, creating a cave-like alcove they could swim into. Then the remaining smaller rafts were stacked on that Dr. Seuss-style. “So we actually had 11 rafts, but the stack was only 10 rafts tall,” Baack says, adding they used 300 feet on cam straps to tie the rafts all together. “The straps are what separated us from other people who have tried it.”
Paddlers then positioned themselves on the bottommost raft for steering and propulsion, with Baack riding on top. “I should’ve had Sawyer make me a 20-foot paddle,” he says, admitting the whole set-up was “kind of dangerous.”
He says the section was pretty mellow, but the entrance rapid was kind of tricky. “It wasn’t perfect, but we made it.” He adds. “It’s gets daunting when it gets that tall. But we could probably go higher. Now I got it figured out.”
He’s already thinking of trying again for next year’s Lochsa Madness event on Idaho’s Lochsa.
Fun Side Fact:
Baack is also the unofficial current world record holder for landing the highest waterfall off a paddleboard when he soared off Washington’s East Fork of the Lewis 14-foot-high Sunset Falls.
Watch video of the raft stack here: