FYI, the whip that's the subject of this thread got a little action in the last few weeks. This is mostly a rehash from over on
The Raider Forums, but might be of interest here:
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be kayaking with my wife, my son and a tour group up the Hule'ia river in Kaua'i, Hawai'i. The river was a stand-in location for a certain river in Peru where in 1936 a notable archaeologist once had to swing into a river and swim to a float plane to evade some angry Hovito warriors. I flew my geek flag and wore a straw fedora ("officially licensed"!) and brought the 9' nylon bullwhip by COW's on Dangerman009, documented in this very thread. Apart from the guides - who asked good questions and had gotten a demo before we set off on the trek - the rest of the group was... unimpressed with the latent geekyness. Until, that is, until we reached an open area on a hike and I did some cracking. That got some applause from the Hovitos, er, normal folk.
Here's the bank of the Hule'ia. On the extreme left edge of the photo you can just make out a dangling rope. When we got here with our kayaks some kids were playing on it, but they'd left by the time we returned from our hike. This is from the end of our trek - unfortunately, we didn't have time to actually swing into the river!
For reference, Kipu Ranch (where the chase down the grassy hillside was filmed) and Kipu Falls (I believe where the Barranca disarm was filmed) is about a kilometer to the west. I'm not certain, though, and happy to be corrected.
After disembarking from our kayaks we hiked into the woods for a picnic, then arrived at a pond. That's at about the point where someone asked if I was carrying a real whip. I was happy to oblige. Here's the least-worst picture of the whip cracking. Everything is blurry except the whip!
And finally, here's an establishing shot. In hindsight, there's no reason I couldn't have grabbed a victim, er, volunteer to participate in the whippery:
If I look a bit disheveled, it's because my son and I had just used a different rope to swing into this pond (me: once; my son: 3 times), so I've recently emerged soaking wet and just slipped back into my clothes. I was hoping we'd come to a more open area later and I could give some whip cracking lessons, but that was not to be. There was also no swinging from the whip - as a demo I did whip some vines to show that yes, it was possible, but no, you really don't want to put your weight on a quarter-inch vine wrapped by a single strand of paracord. As it was, I was having to carefully aim my cracks to avoid getting hung up in the vines. The whip also dragged through the water; this let each crack generated a huge puff of spray from the popper which was unexpectedly impressive to the audience. (I'll have to remember to play that up next time.)
Alas, this was my first real performance with an audience so I didn't have any banter. In hindsight I could have used a couple of volunteers to re-enact bits of the film (Barranca disarm, etc).
Once again, kudos to Dangerman009 on his whip!
(Go Nylon! ;D)
I believe (if I'm wrong, someone please let me know) that the Turk's head knot on most leather whips doesn't cover over the whole thing. It seems that there is usually a solid piece of leather covering the bottom. I'd do that knob any way it was ordered (provided I knew or could figure out how to do it).
)