Width: 63cm

Volume: Large

Outfitting: Fully Rigged

new for 2008

OK, first question. River running creeker? WTF is that. SURELY if you're going creeking you want a creeker, and if you're not going creeking, then you're going river running. So what's a river running creeker. I admit, it seems a little odd. What exactly would make it different rom a creeker?

This is my theory. If you're running a balls to the wall creek, you're not really interrested in forward speed. You want easy boofing, fast turning and forward mooving resurfacing. Creeks a re full of rocks and drops and you want the boat to stay on top, and move over everything with just one stroke, as you rarely get more than this. The length of the CM makes the "reach" over holes, drops and boils easy, but even the CM is not a fast boat for its length (269cm -compared to the Mafia at 233cm). A creeker is also more likely to spend a lot of time hitting rocks and bouncing over them, and it needs to be predictable on rocky slides, as well as in the water.

What I wanted to create was a kayak that would alow me to get more speed and drive. A more fun paddlign experience, and retain as many of the creek boat features as possible. So I have taken out a lot of tail rocker, and hardened the edges in the tail so the release is effective like a playboat, and the kayak is fast in a sprint. The Mad Boy will feel like its 30cm faster than the Critical Mass even if its 10cm shorter. It'll have better drive through holes (river holes as opposed to holes at the bottom of drops)., across funky water and basically through water induced obstacles as opposed to rock induced ones. And eddy hopping will be fun again!

But reduced tail rocker (on its own) means harder to boof. This is because as much as boofing is the lifting of the nose, it is also the dropping of the tail. The rocker of the tail alows the nose to lift. Reducing tail rocker reduces this ease. On the flip side, lower rocker is more forward speed, which in turn helps boofing. So its a trade off. That being said, a low rocker tail will not "one stroke" boof like a high rocker tail. So, if boofing is the one trade off, how can I compensate? By making the nose rise quickly on landing as the boat is "squirted forwards and out".

The upward scoop of the nose (rocker and deck volume) work together to lift the nose upwards as the boat moves forwards. Remember, this boat is fast, so its designed to opperate with forward momentum (if you want to one stroke plop your drops, get a CM). As the nose lifts, the combination of the downward sloping rear deck, and edges on the tail make the boat shoot forwards like a watermellon seed so it "spits" forwards away and out of the hole. The Mafia already does this a little, but the Mad Boy is really designed to do it.

Because it's faster, you have to think faster on tight creek runs, but you'll be able to react later on volue river runs as you have the speed and drive. Unlike a lot of "river runners" out there, I've stayed away from hard rails in the nose so that it's still very effective at glancing up and over rocks for boofing and on slides. Edges are for playboats and water! But I've still kept a flat hull so it has a familier feel, and realitive to its rocker, spins on a dime. After all, I still want this boat to creek... and creek really hard runs. It's just not a "plop that drop" boat on a creek. It's going to need to be paddled.

That being said, on river runs, this is going to be a dream. Easy and forgiving, easy to roll (easy to roll with sloppy technique), and a fun eddy hopper and rapid runner.