# rafting the mississippi...



## loam (Dec 20, 2007)

i'd like to take a raft down the mississipi river, tomsawyer style.


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## Bendixontherails (Dec 20, 2007)

I'm want to do this at some point in my life.


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## finn (Dec 20, 2007)

That sounds vaguely similar to the Rockaway Armada project of last summer...


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## barnaclebones (Dec 20, 2007)

those fuckers had way too much fun on that adventure. my partner in crime was on the rockaway... and her stories are painful to listen to. ....didnt that crew do something similar this past summer?


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## jack ransom (Dec 20, 2007)

when I was in Winona, MN back in 06 I met some kids from Minneapolis who were going down to New Orleans. pretty fuckin dope.


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## finn (Dec 21, 2007)

Just make sure the raft is strong enough to have a towline/anchor in a harsh current, since that is one problem the miss rockaway armada had. Otherwise, the raft will rip itself apart in those conditions and you'll be relying on your lifepreserver...


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## Matt Derrick (Jan 6, 2008)

ive been hearing rumors about this for years and years and years... does anyone actually have any experience with this or know someone that did it? i want to hear STORIES!!!


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## brooksisdead (Jan 7, 2008)

i have some frineds who did this i believe over the summer.
i havent gotten a chance to talk to them about it yett, though.

cool stuff.


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## finn (Jan 7, 2008)

Well, the miss rockaway armada do have a webpage: it's http://www.missrockaway.org, though hearing the stories in person is definitely more exciting than reading the blog.


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## RandomRaccoon (Mar 8, 2008)

Wicked book to read is "paddle to the amazon" by Don Starkell
Buddy and his tw sons paddle from winnipeg down to the missisipi and all the way down to the gulf of whazzit called thten on the amazon through brazill!!! Fucking wicked inspirational read if yer wanting some reference.


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## Robot (Mar 9, 2008)

this story is from this past summer. i live in mn near the mississippi and two of my friends had just gotten married and were going on their honeymoon down the miss. to new orleans. then they were going to wait out the summer there since minnesota sucks. they built their own boat on their front lawn, launched and found their engine was using way too much gas than they wanted to pay for. they left it in wisconsin and took their small little fishing boat type thing instead. they made it all the way down to about a hundred miles away. they tied to a dock leaving their shit in it to go grab some foor quick. when they returned, all their shit was stolen. luckily they had their food and id's and shit on them. they decided to say fuck it and take a bus to new orleans. after that they took a bus to stay with a mutual friend in austin. sucks they had to get their shit stolen, but for the most part they had an enjoyable honeymoon. i think they said it took them a little over a month, but im not for certain.


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## SeymourGlass (Mar 9, 2008)

loam said:


> i'd like to take a raft down the mississipi river, tomsawyer style.



wow. that's nuts that you think that because lately all i've wanted to do is buy a houseboat and live on the mississippi. just float down that shit all day everyday.
i think grand rapids is putting our minds on the same page...


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## wokofshame (Apr 10, 2008)

oh yeah! i found the paper zine for that site a year back and it is the shit.

i got this idea right now to get a vechile, probably something like a light VW van from a junkyard, strip everything out except the steering wheel and rack and pinion steering set-up,
mount it on a raft, run a rod to the rudder, and when it rains or snows, you just steer from inside your schwagg hippie bus.
y'all, ben, wanna get together build a raft together somewhere upstream next winter?


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## Shade (Apr 10, 2008)

brotha i AM a pirate


rememberusername said:


> before i die ima raft it.
> 
> check out blueanarchy.org , check out the anarchy yatch club.. crazy shit.
> 
> ...


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## iago (Nov 16, 2008)

ive been looking into building a small motor powered raft on the banks of the miss in arabi or chalmette LA (right outside of new orleans just smaller towns were i could probably keep everything in an abandoned lot or some thing and not have it fucked with) and then floating to the mississippi delta and hoppin' around those islands down there. i guess the biggest problem would be having enough clean water to be away from civilization for at least a couple weeks in case some thing went terribly wrong. i would probably build the boat large enough to keep bikes on it so when im done me and who ever im with could tie up in triumph or buras (reference to map of delta area) and make the 50-60? mile bike ride back to nola.

OR 
i remeber seeing an abandoned hotel resort thing on the gulf right next to the line that runs from NOLA->mobile->pensacola or b'ham
maybe its in St.louis bay in MS? in one of those bays on the coast. we were rolling by kinda quick but i think it was 2 large buildings completely abandoned right on the coast surrounded by palm trees. sail over there and kick it in a resort squat catching fish and swimming in the ocean every day

haha second thought i could steal somones FEMA trailer and make pontoons for it and just float that down. that would probably be a big hit among those who are still living in those damn things.

now i just need to move back to nola and get started...


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## wildboy860 (May 20, 2009)

WoWw.... this has gotta be the most BADDDAASSSS thing I have disocvered since I've joined this website. that's all I gotta say!


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## dime (May 20, 2009)

i tried to raft down the mississippi once in NOLA and me and my friend were drunk and got followed by the ferry then a coast guard boat, then a tug boat then the harbor police. and according to the harbor police it is illegal to do


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## zarathustra (May 24, 2009)

has anybody read about/heard of/met any of the "mississippi boat people"?
I saw something on this website about them.


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## Angela (May 25, 2009)

zarathustra said:


> has anybody read about/heard of/met any of the "mississippi boat people"?
> I saw something on this website about them.



I think this might be what your thinking of from this website...http://squattheplanet.com//around-campfire/videos/5865-moron-brothers.html
This is not on the Mississippi though. I think I've run across these fellas but it was at a bluegrass/oldtime festival. I sure didn't know that they lived on the water until I saw that video.


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## CholoMcScumbag (Aug 22, 2009)

step one- learn to sail better
step two- steal me a dingy (i have one selected and its currently waiting for me ahaha)
step three- use dingy to steal ship (i also have one selected and waiting for me.)
step four- explore, pilage, and have a great time, until the coast guards finally catch me. then go to jail for piracy...which is fine because piracy just sounds dope.

what are you in for?
robing a bank....you?
pirate.
.....


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## boucaneer (Jan 8, 2010)

dime said:


> i tried to raft down the mississippi once in NOLA and me and my friend were drunk and got followed by the ferry then a coast guard boat, then a tug boat then the harbor police. and according to the harbor police it is illegal to do


 

only illeagal because you were drunk. other than that it should be perfectly legal.


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## Swiper (Jan 9, 2010)

if anyone has any information on the ride down, like weather, where it's good to make money, what the towns are like, ect, you should PM me about it because I am very very interested in doing this!


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## Skaggy (Jan 13, 2010)

How plausible would it be to actually raft it, like with a raft n sail? Cause that sounds waaay cooler then using a motorboat.


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## Gypsybones (Jan 14, 2010)

I know a few cats that built a pontoon boat out of wood and plastic 50gal drums. 
they made it right down at the boat launch in river side park on the south side of Pittsburgh.
this was the summer of 08 and the plan was to drift the whole way down to nola and get off there. I know they had to get a little 5hp motor and mount it on the back to make it legal.


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## cranberrydavid (Jan 15, 2010)

I used to know some guys who canoed it from up on the Missouri. They said it was scary as hell. As they told the story all the commercial traffic pretends they don't see you and try to run you down or swamp you, and every lock you had to pass through was a nightmare. They sold the canoe when they were done and never wrote the book they'd been planning.


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## Hillbilly Castro (May 25, 2012)

cranberrydavid said:


> I used to know some guys who canoed it from up on the Missouri. They said it was scary as hell. As they told the story all the commercial traffic pretends they don't see you and try to run you down or swamp you, and every lock you had to pass through was a nightmare. They sold the canoe when they were done and never wrote the book they'd been planning.


Wow, interesting to hear. I wonder if that changes when you're in a larger craft like a barrel barge.

Can you drink the water if you boil it, or do you have to haul in 100% of your water? that'd be real shitty..
and do you even need a motor?


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## Eager (May 25, 2012)

As someone who grew up along the Mississippi and comes from a long line of boat people, I think its cool that people have a renewed interest in traversing the Mississippi, but I gotta say some of yall are have really naive, romanticized ideas about it. If you wouldn't take a clown car out on the interstate, you probz shouldn't take some shitty craft you hodgepodged together with super glue in a couple days out on the Mississippi. The mighty Mississippi isn't some tiny pristine stream in Pennsylvania or Virginia. Can you build your own craft and sail from Minneapolis to NOLA? Sure, but as the Rockaway Armada crew found out the hard way, it isn't as simple as throwing some logs and milk jugs together and jumping in. You gotta have a solid craft and know what the fuck your doing.

And the Mississippi River in Winona or Minneapolis/St. Paul is not the same as the Mississippi in St. Louis or Memphis or NOLA. The water is littered with tree branches lining the bottom once you get to St. Louis, and the currents double in strength once you get to the Ohio River convergence at Cairo, IL, and by the time you get north of Memphis, the river gets so wide you could easily think you were in one of the great lakes (there were no Mississippi river bridges south of STL for decades because it was considered too wide to engineer) and by the time you get to Louisiana, the waters become so muddled and swampy, travelling in a small craft without capsizing or scraping the bottom of your boat is near impossible.

PS: And no, you cannot boil and drink water out of the Mississippi. There is a reason most towns and cities along the Mississippi don't get their drinking water from the Mississippi.


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## Dmac (May 25, 2012)

as someone who has canoed and boated a lot i would love to hear stories of people who try and do this. you don't just toss something together and float down like huck finn did. i am preparing to laugh my ass off hearing of those who try it. please, please do this, i need more humor in my life. in a good canoe, the wind can still push you back upstream, a raft is even worse . and getting supplies is worse than hitching or hopping. forget fishing for your food, it just will not work out. but i do want to hear your stories about how it sucked. i have taken a canoe from Omaha to st. Lewis. took forever and i will never do something like that again. but i am sure that YOU can do it better, just make sure to tell us all about it, if you don't end up drowning


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## ped (May 26, 2012)

Pfft we've become so pussyfied we're too scared to get out on a little river where just a 100 some odd years ago 11 year olds were doing it.


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## Sauv89 (Jun 2, 2012)

It's totally doable, I went from St Cloud to Red Wing in a 17ft Coleman canoe with my dog. I ended up not going all the way b.c of the weather. Some days were great, others cold & windy, mind you I began my trip in late march ( 2012) and by April 16 the weather had me fucked, got stuck near Spring Lake in horrible gusts of winds and 3-5ft waves. It's a great adventure! !!!


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## Kelly Duncan (Jun 24, 2012)

anyone watched random lunacy? papa nuetrino sailed the atlantic on homade ship. so rafting the mississippi is pos. should check that out, badass ship.


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## Cardboard (Jul 1, 2012)

Matt Derrick said:


> ive been hearing rumors about this for years and years and years... does anyone actually have any experience with this or know someone that did it? i want to hear STORIES!!!


My friend faith made this blog about her trip down the mississippi
http://wewillnotdrown.blogspot.pt/


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## ped (Jul 1, 2012)

Cardboard said:


> My friend faith made this blog about her trip down the mississippi
> http://wewillnotdrown.blogspot.pt/


 
That's pretty damn cool right there.


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## dprogram (Jul 1, 2012)

Just scrolled through all the responses to this.

My friend Michael Bray died in that river and it's nothing to play with. The undercurrent is so strong that it creates whirlpools. I'm from Memphis and have seen them personally. Be careful punx!


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## Kim Chee (Jul 1, 2012)

dprogram said:


> My friend Michael Bray died in that river and it's nothing to play with. The undercurrent is so strong that it creates whirlpools. I'm from Memphis and have seen them personally. Be careful punx!


 
Good advice!

I don't have a boat or seamanship skills to offer, but if anybody is gonna do anything like this and wouldn't mind some hardworking company I'm down with that.


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## dprogram (Jul 4, 2012)

I'm guessing that about 16-20 55 gallon drums strapped together could make a good sized platform.


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## Cardboard (Jul 4, 2012)

industry grade palllet tanks are a cubic meter, and can hold 1 ton of weight bouyant. 6 of those, and you could throw a few caravans on top, a bunch of people, supplies to last the whole trip, and still be well above water.


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## 40 Hands (Jul 31, 2012)

Actually me and a bunch of kids wanna host a rat race down the missisip. Everyone starts in one town (were thinkin quad cities since thered be 4 cities to hit for raft building supplies for everyone to work). Only rule is you have to build your own raft, not buy or jack one. Finish line in NOLA and were thinkin bout tossin a $25 entry fee per raft, and the winning raft takes the cake. Thats the plan for next summer atleast. Ill start a thread for it later on when we get the schematics worked out.


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## Matt Derrick (Dec 18, 2012)

40 Hands said:


> Actually me and a bunch of kids wanna host a rat race down the missisip. Everyone starts in one town (were thinkin quad cities since thered be 4 cities to hit for raft building supplies for everyone to work). Only rule is you have to build your own raft, not buy or jack one. Finish line in NOLA and were thinkin bout tossin a $25 entry fee per raft, and the winning raft takes the cake. Thats the plan for next summer atleast. Ill start a thread for it later on when we get the schematics worked out.


 
that sounds awesome, i would be totally down for this. please let us know if you decided to do this.

I want to follow a few other folks doing this and make a mini-documentary about it. i hear sooo much talk about doing this, but ive never met anyone who has. i really would like to do this with a bunch of other people and document it for others to prove it can be done.


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