John Berry

John Berry, der Designer des M.E. und einer Reihe anderer legendärer Wildwasser- und Slalomcanadier ist am 11. August gestorben. Er ist 86 Jahre alt geworden und paddelte bis letztes Jahr noch regelmäßig auf dem Swift River in Maryland. Über ihn gibt es spannende Anekdoten. Damit die Hintergrundinformationen nicht wieder verloren gehen (wie der Artikel über den M.E., den ich einmal verlinkt habe und der dann aus dem Netz verschwand) kopiere ich sie mal hierher.

Aus einem archivierten Thread im Solo-Tripping Forum

Millbrook is owned by the most decorated WW open boat slalom paddler ever, John Kazimierczyk, and is the WW open canoe line that has won more slalom races than any other since 1959. Millbrook boats have also always been used by discerning recreational WW boaters who value composite light weight, speed, acceleration, and whiplash turns.

The company was started in 1959 by one of the true pioneers of WW racing, open and closed boat design, and multiple WW river first descents, who ever lived -- John Berry. A Wharton graduate who was a canoe fanatic, John dropped out of the financial world, put his Wharton degree over his toilet, and began making boats and running a ski lodge in Waitsfield, Vermont. He first called the company Mad River Canoes and Kayaks in 1965.

Jim Henry later started a company in Waitsfield that he called Mad River Canoe. John and Jim decided that only one of them should be able to call their fledgling enterprises by the name Mad River. So, instead of going to court, they went to the local bar.

John first proposed that they settle the name dispute by an ax throwing contest, as he was a champion ax thrower. Jim didn't fall for this ploy. So they flipped a coin for it, and Jim Henry won. John Berry changed the name of his company to Millbrook Boats in 1971, named after a tributary of the Mad River that flowed by his ski lodge.

In 1975, John Berry moved Millbrook Boats to Riparius, NY, in the Adirondacks, where he personally trained and sold boats to legions of disciples (including yours truly, to whom he personally told this history), who went on to spread the gospel of light weight composite canoes and modern WW slalom technique.

Having "imported" one of the first Hahn closed boats into the U.S. when he was the national C-1 champion, John Berry used the Hahn hull (as John Sweet also did) to be the basis of the best known Millbrook boats of the 70's and 80's: the Flasher, the Flashback, the AC/DC, the MJM and the legendary ME. Jim Henry's Mad River Canoe also was licensed to make the Flashback and ME.

John Berry's most talented paddling apostle was John Kazimierczyk, who bought Millbrook from Berry in 1988.

Kaz has introduced many of his own famous WW boat designs -- many of which incorporate Kaz innovations such as "cab forward" and reverse asymetrical rocker (more rocker in the stern than bow) -- such as the Reaktor and Ignitor. Since the mid-80's Kaz himself has gone on to win more WW open canoe racing championship medals than anyone else, surpassing even John Berry.

...

John Berry had a wicked sense of humor and sense of word play, and was not averse to off-color humor. He really did have his Wharton diploma hanging over the toilet in his Riparius workshop.

His first short WW slalom canoe, perhaps anyone's, was the 13' Flasher. He had a graphic for this boat. It was a guy opening his raincoat and exposing himself.

John then designed a 15' WW slalom canoe based somewhat on the Flasher hull. This bigger Flasher was named the ... Maximum Exposure.

The Flasher itself has some quirks as a boat and John modified it to become the Flashback, which itself had two versions and was a popular boat for Millbrook and Mad River.

Berry's girlfriend in the 70's-80's was a graphic artist, who I believe did the Flasher graphic I saw, and John named the MJM after her.

Berry's AC/DC deliberately has a bisexual connotation because you paddle it in one direction for downriver paddling and the other direction for whitewater slalom.

His two hole tandem closed boat, the Berrigan, had multiple word plays. In one sense it was a play on Berry-Harrigan, the famous whitewater championship team for which John paddled bow. In another sense it was a poke at the Berrigan brothers, Daniel and Phillip, who were famous political activist Catholic priests in the 60's and 70's.

Nachtrag: Hier noch ein Nachruf bei American Whitewater und einer von MadRiver Canoes