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Show Record It was easiest to operate after the snow started to melt in the mountains and the river began to come up, from April to the middle or last of July we had lots of water in the river. Coming up stream I would rather navigate the river in high water than I would otherwise, after you get on to how to 5066 do it. On the return trip we would operate alright. We did not have any trouble. We would run the boats on what we called the easy side of the river. We would go over where the current was not so swift, where we would have eddies. When we would go over in the shallower portion of the river we did not have trouble with sand bars, very little in high water. In nearly all of our opera-tions up stream we would stand away from the fast water as much as we could. When we got away from it we were liable to run onto sand bars then. The boats did not have any trouble making headway against the current in high water. We could not run as well in the rapid water as we could in the shallow water. If we got in the swiftest places we couldn't make any headway. When the fast rapid water was running we would stand away from the swiftest water. We could make no headway in the rapid water in crossing. We would follow one side of the river for a while then come up to where the easiest water was on the other side, then in crossing over we would just barely hold our own in the swift places. When we were in those swift places making the crossings over, I never would let my boat be whipped around. I was always able to hold the boat up stream in the channel, and that is true of all three boats. I never had any 5068 trouble of that kind. In the smaller boats I have made ten miles an hour up stream. The average speed up stream at low water would be six or seven miles an hour for the Chandler boat. The Punkin Seed, four or five miles an hour. During the low water stages the speeds that I have given fairly represent the speeds which I made with these boats. I was not able to make the same speeds between Shafter No. 2 well and Lockhart as I was between Moab and Shafter No. 2, |