Includes reporting by Zach Urness, Salem Statesman Journal.
In September 2026, a group led by Covey Baack stacked 10 SOTAR rafts and floated a section of the Rogue River. In early October, at 10:15 one Thursday morning at work, I decided to go for it myself, counting by number of boats.
I borrowed a 14-foot Maravia and a 14-foot NRS from my friend David Pauli, and picked up five packrafts from Go North Rafts. On Saturday we did a fall colors float with the OWA, and I took the Go North Carver, which was an absolute blast. Then on Sunday, October 11, we went for it from Fishermen's Bend to North Santiam County Park.
The stack, bottom to top
A 14-foot SOTAR Classic (with my mom's Wave Destroyer cat tubes strapped along its sides as outriggers for stability and seating), a 14-foot NRS, a 14-foot Maravia, a 13-foot Super Puma, an 11-foot SOTAR Lance, a 9.5-foot RMR Thundercloud, a 14-foot Momentum Harrier tandem kayak ("Big Blue and Ugly"), a Go North Glacier, my SOTAR SL, a Tomcat Max, and the Go North Badger and Element on top. That's 12 boats.
We arrived around 9 a.m. Inflating took about an hour, by hand and with an electric pump. Stacking took about two more. I was aiming for 17, but between time limits and how hard it got to go higher, we called it at 12. That's more boats than the Rogue stack, though theirs was likely taller. We floated just under four miles in about an hour, hung up on one rock, spun off, and had people filming us from houses all along the river.
In the news
As I told Zach Urness of the Statesman Journal, "There were a lot of very perplexed people." I also told him it's "just an informal community record," and whether I set it "kind of depends how you define it." Urness reported that 10 to 15 friends and family helped rig the stack, held together mostly with raft straps, that it stood an estimated 15 feet tall and passed about 15 feet below power lines, and that my dad and friends Kira Yelton and Steph Silbernagel helped paddle. Up on the stack, I said, "you're so high up you kind of feel detached from the water."
Source: Zach Urness, "Oregon teen floats record 12-boat stack down Santiam River," Salem Statesman Journal, updated Oct. 15, 2026.
Huge thanks to everyone who helped make it happen. We may hook up something crazier in the future. We'll see.
