October 10, 2004

It was very important for me to make a kayak that was the best river running playboat ever. And although that is a huge achievement shared by David Knight and I, along with everybody who helped us produce it, that is not what I am most proud of.

Making a boat that is the easiest boat to be rolled upright is my most precious feature of the kayak. There are so many parameters to try to idealize and control, many of which are mutually excusive, but the boats rolling ability was maximized, and the results are starting to become clear in the marketplace. A boat that surfs, cartwheels, and boofs, but is a bear to roll will put an intermediate with a mediocre roll out of commission. A boat that makes rolling easier than ever before, will install confidence and allow the person paddling it to progress at a much faster pace.

This winter the best thing anybody with an average roll, and certainly anybody who doesn’t have an offside and hand roll, should get into a Fun that is their size and get in the swimming pool. This fall and winter is the time to get that offside and hand rolls and to get a speed roll, and finally get over the hurdle that has been in place for some time, the bombproof roll.

I have had many articles on bombproofing your roll. I have maintained that anybody who keeps their head down and uses a proper hip snap can roll any boat on market within their size range. However, just because I can walk to the park, doesn’t mean that riding the bike to the park isn’t easier. With the roll, a boat that has an effortless initial hip snap, an quick and stable transfer from the side to right side up, all while allowing you to keep your body weight low is the way to go. We achieved this with the Fun like no boat before. Even the backband position being lower than most boats allows the hip snap to be unhindered.

Emily and Dane have gone from having a good roll and brace to being in the top 1% of all kayakers in the world on their rolls since they got into the Fun 1 and 2 Fun. Their confidence is so tied into their mastery of the roll this past winter that I could write a book on the transformation. If you were to ask Emily what she does best in a kayak, she would probably say, roll. I was at the Brave Wave all last week with Dane and his roll and brace is key to that place being safe for him. I suggest, as tactfully as I can, that certain people should not paddle their, until their roll and brace improve. I don’t care if they can do a blunt, if they miss a brace, roll, and then have to roll again, and at this point are upside down in front of the undercut wall.

If you are not 100% confident in your roll, get properly fitted into a Fun of your size and take it into flatwater, whitewater, whatever you want, roll it, then decide just what kind of a difference having that good of a roll in your back pocket will do for you.

:) EJ

Dane laying on the back deck of a Fun 1