putting on at 2 is ideal, but you also want to time it so you get to friendsville right about 5pm so you can ride the water the whole way. As the other poster stated it gets to be a bit of a drag to catch the front and have to either wait or scrape down. If you put on much later than 2:30 than you have to work to catch the water in the beginning section which can be pretty annoying and scrapy.