Anywhere people are setting lines, we are excited to help. Not too long ago, we got this message from one of our customers:
I am a whitewater rafter and kayaker who helps promote a slalom race on the Rio Grande near Taos NM. A white water slalom event has ‘gates’ hung at appropriate places along a river that a contestant must negotiate as fast they can. It’s a timed event and time penalties are incurred when a contestant either touches the gate (a few seconds) or misses it altogether (BIG penalty). I’ve included a link to a video below so you can see what we’re up to.
The race I help with is on a wild stretch of the Rio Grande and does not have permanently installed gate supports. So each year we have set the gates up again. A big challenge here is simply getting ropes across the river to suspend and locate the gates. We’ve done this in the past by simply having a kayaker drag a line across the river with him while he ferries across in a kayak. I bought your launcher simply to shoot these lines across the river to a person on the other side to grab and tie the lines to an appropriate anchor; then we continue to ’set’ the gate.
I have a friend in the river community who was also the chief at a volunteer fire department very near Pilar, NM where we put the kayak/raft races on. Assuming they had a rope gun of some sort, I first asked her about the possibility of trying to coordinate some training for their volunteers with the gun by getting ropes across the river for us. Turns out they do not have a rope gun; so I went ahead and bought one from you. I must say the pneumatic design is far superior for my needs as opposed to other options on the market.
Here’s a video of the gates while we await race day: