Popularity
Playboating has grown in popularity in recent years due to innovations in boat design. Modern playboats are made from plastic which is much more robust than glass fibre or wood. Playboats typically have much less volume in the bow and stern than dedicated river running kayaks. This allows the paddler to easily dip either end underwater.
Despite sales of playboats increasing, it is regularly claimed that participation in playboating events is decreasing (that "rodeo is dead"). However, events such as the National Student Rodeo have seen entries increasing year on year, and that interest in the sport is as high as it ever was.
Playboating is mainly done for fun, but competitions are also popular. Paddlers have a set time to perform as many different moves as possible, and score additional points for style.
Visiting a playspot where you do not need to commit to a full river run to get there (which involves shuttling cars to the bottom of the river) is often referred to as 'Park and Play'. Playboating can often be more convenient and can in some circumstances can be considered safer than river running - in particular if the play spot is in an accessible area as opposed to a large number of whitewater runs which exist in remote and inaccessible (in case of injury or rescue) areas.
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Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“Here also was made the novelty ‘Chestnut Bell’ which enjoyed unusual popularity during the gay nineties when every dandy jauntily wore one of the tiny bells on the lapel of his coat, and rang it whenever a story-teller offered a ‘chestnut.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.... He was fixed in the house of lords, that hospital of incurables, and his retreat to popularity was cut off; for the confidence of the public, when once great and once lost, is never to be regained.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)