<< Is the essence
of boat to flow with the current, or to travel down hill. I'd go with the
former - if you can't detect the slope, the boat still follows the current,
and it allows for the *wonderful* scene of a boat suddenly leaping *up* a
waterfall (if you see what I mean) because that's what the river does. Your
story may be different. Go with it. >>
I'd go with boats tending to go down, while river goes up, giving the possibility of one hell of a white water run, where the current overcomes the "gravity" on the boat and it gets pushed uphill, but only where the current is strong enough, and the boat light enough.
I think boats on rivers without other means of propulsion are moved mostly by current (in the RW with RW physics), it is not like they are sliding downhill, it is like they are sitting on a sliding hill. On the Siphon though, the current is going up hill and a rate that we can presume is similar to normal rivers (just in the opposite direction) while the boat is, in effect, sliding downhill. The water will appear to be going twice as fast as normal, as it rushes past. At some point the boat is pulled up by the water at an equal rate to it being pulled down by "gravity" (downslopiness). A skilled boat handler could manage to keep the boat balanced at this point and even stand up using his arms to balance and praising Indlas Somer for his Surf sup blessing.
Keith
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