I haven't been excited about a kayak for a long time. But this one's pretty, different, and it's been playing hard to get for a long time. I first heard about the Loki project quite a while back, as my friend Daz Clarkson had paddled a prototype and pronounced it to be the boat that he (and I) should be reliving our youth(s) in...
Despite the rave reviews the testers were returning, the boys and girls at Pyranha are perfectionists, and the boat kept being put on hold until all the kinks were ironed out. But now it's done, and I have a blind date with it at the weekend. And I can't wait.
First impressions is that it's faithful to the brief, to create a boat that rekindles the fun we used to have in slightly longer, slicier boats in decades past. From a glimpse of video I saw, it seems loose on a wave and retentive in a hole, and the tail sinks and pivots beautifully. My only reservation is that the front end seems a bit more voluminous than my beloved Prozone (which went off without me in the end, because I was trying to be clever), but that's probably a good thing, because my legs/feet are a bit creaky these days. And I've always had a pretty strong smash anyways.
So, I am about to jump on a plane to a place where the water isn't mostly frozen, and see what kind of mischief we can get up to together. I'll let you know ;)
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