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Chasing Waves: Hunting For Surf In British Columbia

person paddles a sea kayak in British Columbia's Kyuquot Sound while towing a board for surfing
Feature photo: Ben Haggar

For some paddlers, kayaks are both a means and an end—a vessel to access the best surf and then play in it. But for me and three friends, it was a love of surfing boards, not boats, that drew us to a remote stretch of northwest Vancouver Island coastline in search of untapped breaks. Rather than zipping back and forth in a powerboat blitzing waves and disrupting the region’s natural vibe, we wanted a more adventurous, eco- and budget-friendly trip. Sea kayaks were the obvious choice. Our journey focused as much on self-reliance and careful scouting as it did on scoring new surf.

Chasing waves: Hunting for surf in British Columbia

vehicle with kayaks on top on bridge
Photo: Ben Haggar

Onwards to Kyuquot Sound

A loud crack breaks the concentration needed to navigate the harrowing tentacles of the Artlish River valley’s forestry roads. More than seven hours and nearly 500 kilometers out of Tofino, we pull to the roadside to take stock of my 20-year-old Tacoma. Loaded with four people, a canopy full to the brim with food and gear, and four kayaks and surfboards strapped to a homemade wooden rack, it’s difficult to tell from where the ominous sound originated. Fortunately, the aged truck’s protests are merely a bluff and we continue our laborious descent to the coast.

Logging trucks piled high with old growth cedars speed past, trailing choking clouds of dust. Where the once towering trees have been felled and hauled from the rolling slopes of these coastal mountains, alder thickets crowd the narrow trail of washboard gravel that leads to the innermost reaches of Kyuquot Sound.

Much of Vancouver Island’s outer coast is rugged and remote, and Kyuquot Sound—where our trip begins—is no exception. With virtually no land access to its outer extremities, a boat is a necessity.

Although we can cover less water than a powerboat, our kayaks provide the flexibility to search out new breaks on offshore reefs and islands as well as those tucked in along the unforgiving coast. Crossing the exposed mouth of the sound provides the first gentle rise and fall of a small groundswell, hinting at the waves we are hoping to find hiding beyond Rugged Point on the storm-battered outer coast.

surfing at sunset on remote Vancouver Island
Photo: Ben Haggar

Rewarded with good weather

Landing on a golden sandy beach on the protected eastern side of the point, we race excitedly down the narrow trail through thick waxy leaves of salal, dodging bear scat and scrambling up steep, muddy slopes. Bursting from the cloak of dense old growth forest into the brilliant afternoon sun bathing the outer coast, we gaze upon a natural surfing paradise. With the vast Pacific as a sparkling backdrop, small clean peaks peel off a sandbank in the middle of a crescent-shaped bay ringed by white sand and bleached driftwood.

The warm waters of Kyuquot Sound have wrapped around to the outer coast and amazingly, at nearly 50 degrees latitude, we can surf sans wetsuit, unheard of in our backyard surf playground of Tofino. Our first evening rewards us with a short, playful surf session as the unseasonably hot September sun sets and an amazing orange moon and bright Milky Way rise over our camp.

sun through trees leading to beach
Photo: Ben Haggar

The multi-day trip routine: surf, fish, explore

The beauty of a multi-day kayak trip is that it sharpens your sense of adaptation and self-reliance, leaving you more in command of your own experience. This journey was the first time any of us had kayaked on the open coast, but our surfing experience served us well.

Reading the waves, I learned to time a burst of paddle strokes to safely land my boat through surf. Once ashore, I could wade out into the water and assist my girlfriend, Caroline, as it was her very first kayaking adventure. Meanwhile, our German companions, Anja and Uwe, handled their long boats like seasoned veterans, gliding effortlessly onto the exposed beaches.

The days blurred as we settled into a routine of surfing, fishing and exploration. One of our daily activities involved identifying fresh animal tracks in the sand including bear, cougar and, one morning, translating a story involving a deer and a very large timber wolf.

With the kayaks, we scoped potential reef breaks and other beaches for waves. The swell filled in as forecasted and the extra size opened up a speedy river mouth right-hander. But we had yet to explore the outer reef shelves that had piqued my interest while pouring over marine charts and Google Earth months earlier.

person surfing at sunset on Vancouver Island's Kyuquot Sound
Photo: Ben Haggar

Loving the unknowns

The roulette wheel of searching for remote surf spots by kayak could be a fickle affair. Re-checking a break on a different tide wasn’t really an option with the large distances between spots, but when you hit it right, you could hit it big.

We paddled past plenty of reefs when the tumultuous variables of swell direction and tide failed to produce surfable waves. Then we saw them: the reeling green backs of waves jacking up on the horizon. On closer inspection, the slabby left-hander sucked most of the water from the reef, threw a thick green lip and carved an angry path through a dense mat of bull kelp.

I love the unknowns of surfing a new break and one this remote and wild had me nearly jumping out of my kayak. The only information we had was what we were staring at in that very moment.

Now I know a lot more: I am intimate with the impenetrable beds of mussels covering every inch of the treacherous rocks. I can picture the brightly colored eelgrass, sea stars and anemones that crowd the reef. And I know that if you miss your drop, you’re going to get a closer look at the creatures below and battle through foamy kelp on your way back to the surface.

waves on coast
Photo: Ben Haggar

One final treat

Inevitably, dense coastal fog rolled in, obscuring the peaks and the sun and seeming to add hours to the 25-kilometer paddle back into the sound. Mother and calf grey whales escorted us for much of the morning, and the silence was absolute apart from our rhythmic paddle strokes and the whales’ sharp exhalations echoing between the islands.

As night fell on our last campsite, one final treat came in the unexpected form of bioluminescent phytoplankton glowing bright blue in the shallows and on the seawater-saturated pebble beach. With childlike excitement, we skipped luminous blue stones and ran with electric footprints down the beach.

Cover of the Summer 2014 issue of Adventure Kayak magazineThis article was first published in the Summer 2014 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.


Feature photo: Ben Haggar

 

Sun and Sand at the Top of the South: Abel Tasman, NZ

All photos this page: Jaime Sharp
Sun and Sand at the Top of the South: Abel Tasman, NZ

The perfect antithesis to the wet and rugged coasts found further south, Abel Tasman’s golden sand beaches, sun-filled fruit orchards and warm, Caribbean-blue water make it a paddling paradise. Although it’s consequentially more commercialized, the region is also rich in history and Maori culture.

We link up with Kyle Mulinder, a charismatic guide for the Sea Kayak Company who takes great pride in his Maori heritage and carries on tour his grandmother’s conch, or putatara. The shell is a traditional Taonga puoro, Maori musical instruments used in the recounting of creation stores. Mulinder shares some of these stories, enacting each tale as he tells it, dancing and drawing in the sand in front of his international audience: a couple from Germany, two girls from France, two Americans and two Kiwis.

He relates his own speculations on history and what first contact must have been like for the Maori—indigenous Polynesians whom it is believed traveled over 2,500 miles to New Zealand by dug-out canoes, or waka, and settled some 400 years before the first Europeans—when Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sailed into nearby Golden Bay in 1642. Although Tasman is credited with “discovering” New Zealand, he and his crew actually never set foot on the island. When the Dutch sailors attempted to land in the bay, a major agricultural area for the Maori, they were met by a fleet of war canoes. Four of Tasman’s men were killed in a bloody skirmish and the explorer hastily sailed away, never to return.

After our tour with Mulinder, we paddle to the far end of Abel Tasman National Park and pick our way back over 30 miles along the shore for the next three days. It’s a leisurely trip compared to our initial adventure on Stewart Island. The skies are clear and the sun so powerful that unshielded skin burns in minutes. We seize the opportunity to paddle in the cool mornings and linger at offshore island fur seal nurseries, watching the curious pups play in the clear water. Water taxis buzz up and down the coast throughout the day, but in the quiet evenings we share well-equipped campsites and swap stories with other kayakers and hikers from around the world. 

kayaking in Abel Tasman New Zealand

TIPS FOR VISITING ABEL TASMAN

Water taxis make it possible to shuttle into Abel Tasman National Park from the villages of Marahau or Kaiteriteri, then paddle back. Allow one day from Anchorage Bay, or three days from Separation Point at the park’s north end. Another popular option combines paddling
out and hiking back on the Abel Tasman Coast Track. Arrange rentals or a guided tour with the Sea Kayak Company (www.seakayaknz.co.nz). 

Home of Paddling Legends: West Coast NZ

All photos this page: Jaime Sharp
Home of Paddling Legends: West Coast NZ

Sparsely populated and generally inhospitable, the West Coast challenges surf kayakers and advanced paddlers. Here, the Southern Alps, the 10,000–12,000-foot spine of the South Island,meet the pounding swell of the Tasman Sea and winds blow with unobstructed fury all the way from Australia.

It is a coast of contrasts, glaciers reach into lush rainforest and turquoise rivers tumble quickly to the sea.

THE WEST COAST: HOME OF LEGENDS

Fittingly, the region is also home to two of the country’s best known paddling legends: Paul Caffyn and Mick Hopkinson, the godfathers of New Zealand sea kayaking and whitewater paddling, respectively.

It’s hard to summarize Paul Caffyn’s many astonishing achievements, but most paddlers will recognize him as the first person to paddle around New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain, Japan and coastal Alaska, to name a few. He’s traveled over 23,000 miles by kayak. He is, in short, sea kayaking’s Sir Edmund Hillary.

He is also a casual, unassuming man who welcomes us into his modest home, appropriately perched 20 precarious feet above the sea. One rogue wave could easily flood his living room. When someone points this out, Caffyn casually sips his tea, staring out the sliding glass door into the choppy seas, and tells us that slowly the waves have indeed nibbled away at the cliff just beyond his back door. He seems to need the rhythm of the sea nearby, like a moth drawn to light. Books, opera posters, old photographs and paddling keepsakes crowd the walls of his home. I scan them, looking for clues as to the man behind the legend.

When we ask about his adventures, Caffyn smiles and corrects us, “I subscribe to the belief that adventure is what happens when things go wrong.”

His goal has always been to mitigate adventure and one of his favorite aspects of such massive undertakings as circumnavigating a continent is the planning and challenge of the logistics. I begin to see a calculated, reflective man who is comfortable by himself and at home on the sea.

kayaking on the west coast of new zealand

FIGHT FOR – BUT ENJOY – THE LAND AND RIVERS

From Caffyn’s house we head north to Murchison, home of the New Zealand Kayak School, founded and owned by whitewater legend Mick Hopkinson. Mick’s first descents include Africa’s Blue Nile, Everest’s Dudh Khosi and many other rivers in Pakistan, Switzerland, Austria and New Zealand. He’s been inducted into the International Whitewater Hall of Fame and his school has earned international acclaim.

Piquant and just a little sardonic, Mick likes people who stay on their toes, not surprising for a man who loves linking moves in rough water. Now 65, he tells us he is considering taking up sea kayaking in his eighties. Teasing aside, Mick is a gracious host who cares deeply about the waters he paddles. Mick started his career as a slalom paddler in Britain, where it was illegal to kayak local rivers. Fishermen and farmers threw rocks at paddlers for trespassing, and slalom races provided his only opportunity to access the water.

Mick later fell in love with the free-flowing rivers of New Zealand and stayed. As he talks passionately about the future of his adopted country’s rivers and the “idiots” who want to dam them, I get the sense that he and Edward Abbey would have enjoyed sharing a beer. When I bring up the notoriously intractable author and polemic conservationist’s name, Mick smiles broadly and picks up a page tacked above his desk.

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am—a reluctant enthusiast… a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here…” he reads the quote in its entirety and smiles again. “I’m really just a hedonist, turned conservationist so others can be hedonists.” 

TIPS FOR VISITING THE WEST COAST OF NEW ZEALAND

Take a class or rent whitewater equipment at Mick’s New Zealand Kayak School (www.nzkayakschool.com). Even if you’ve never paddled a river before, the school’s world-class staff teaches all skill levels from October through April. They can also organize helicopter shuttles to many of the West Coast’s remote access rivers. 

This article on a trip to the West Coast of New Zealand was published in the Summer 2014 issue of Adventure Kayak magazine.This article first appeared in the Summer 2014 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Crown Jewel of Fiordland: Milford Sound, NZ

All photos this page: Jaime Sharp
Crown Jewel of Fiordland: Milford Sound, NZ

Dramatic glacier-carved cliffs that soar 4,000 feet straight up from the sea and thousands of breathtaking waterfalls that appear like magical faucets after the frequent rains have made this spectacular fiord one of the most popular tourist destinations on the South Island.

We pulled into Milford Sound on the evening of a gathering. I mistakenly called it a “party,” but was quickly corrected by one of our hosts: “Parties in Milford are when people dance naked on the tables.” Nevertheless, everyone in town was in attendance, including the local fishermen, skippers, guides and cruise boat staff.

Jaime had lined up an interview with the founder of New Zealand’s longest established owner-operated sea kayak company: the famous Rosco of Rosco’s Milford Kayaks, who also happened to be hosting the gathering.

MAYOR OF MILFORD

Rosco Gaudin first saw Milford Sound’s potential as a world-class paddling destination in 1988, when he paddled into the fiord on a trip with friends and found himself escorted by a pod of 30 bottlenose dolphins. The experience planted the seed or the area’s first commercial sea kayaking operation, which Rosco has kept small and is still happily helming over two decades later. “I feel extremely privileged to be living my life in an area I love,” he says, “It’s not just the paddling, it is the lifestyle, the people, the vibe and the buzz of showing everyone our playground in paradise.”

Rosco is also the self- proclaimed Mayor of Milford (no one contests the title) and something of a local celebrity. For the past 12 years, he has organized The Great Annual Nude Tunnel Run, which it turns out, is exactly as it sounds.

Every April 1st, around 100 participants run naked—save for headlamps and tennis shoes—through the Homer Tunnel, a nearly mile-long passage that was hand-dug through the mountainside between 1935 and 1953 to provide road access to Milford. The prizes are meager—the fastest woman and man have their names engraved into a nude Barbie and Ken doll, respectively—but entry fees are donated to charity and, as Rosco points out, there are other rewards: “Being naked is invigorating, natural and beautiful; it’s a great way to make new friends.”

Seals sunning in Milford Sound NZ

A REASON FOR THE SANDFLIES

The next day we joined one of Rosco’s guides, Mark Buckland, on a tour of the fiord. We were shuttled by motorboat to just shy of the Tasman Sea, where we hopped in kayaks and paddled the 10 miles back through the steep-sided fiord to the village of Milford. Along the way, we admired 500-foot Sterling Falls and paddled with a pod of playful bottlenose dolphins that leapt into the air all around us.

Every paddler we met in Milford expressed gratitude for being able to spend time in such an amazing place. Of all the stories we heard, one in particular stuck with me: a Maori legend about the origin of Fiordland’s pesky, omnipresent sandflies. In Maori culture, the biting insects were born at Sandfly Point, near today’s kayak launch, to protect Milford Sound from the careless destruction that people often bring to beautiful places. 

TIPS FOR VISITING MILFORD SOUND

The knowledgeable staff at Rosco’s Milford Kayaks (www.roscosmilfordkayaks.com) offer daily trips for all levels of paddlers. Options include taking a water taxi to the mouth of Milford Sound and paddling back, sunset and sunrise tours, or combining kayaking with hiking part of the renowned Milford Track—hailed as “the finest walk in the world.” Whichever you choose, don’t forget your bug repellant. 

This article on tripping through New Zealand was published in the Summer 2014 issue of Adventure Kayak magazineThis article first appeared in the Summer 2014 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Dirty Jobs, Beautiful Boats: Kayak Manufacturing in the UK

All photos this page: Alex Bloyd-Peshkin
Dirty Jobs, Beautiful Boats: Kayak Manufacturing in the UK

Every time we settle into
our kayaks, we see the stickers announcing their provenance: Anglesey, Wales, for our Sea Kayaking UK Pilgrim; Nottingham, England, for our Valley Avocet LV. The place names conjure images of rugged coast and rough water, of grey skies and green meadows. So when the opportunity arises, we jump at the chance to actually visit the birthplaces of our boats.

It’s not exactly Sherwood Forest or the Shire. Valley
and Sea Kayaking UK both occupy factories in nondescript industrial areas. But don’t let the term factory mislead you. These aren’t cavernous buildings with deafening, automated machinery cranking out identical objects at a frantic pace. Rather, they are modest metal sheds where kayaks are handmade by skilled workers in a labor-intensive, multi-step process.

Nottingham lies landlocked in the middle of England. On the outskirts of the bustling city, where the nearby River Trent winds out of crowded suburbia into a lush quilt of tidy fields, tinny Black Sabbath plays over too-small speakers in the Valley factory. Boats-in-progress rest on sawhorses and the sharp smell of solvents fills the air. Cans of gel coat and resin line the shelves and tools, brushes and tape hang from the walls.

Many of Valley’s 20 full-time employees have worked here for more than two decades. A Mick Jagger look-alike leans intently over a brilliant orange kayak. Several other men in gel coat-stained coveralls or spotless white Tyvek suits move the kayaks through their stations: painting the molds with gel coat, layering in the fiberglass and resin, glassing in the coaming, bulkheads and skeg box. For composite kayaks, the time from mold to final inspection is about a week.

Inside a kayak workshop in UK

PRIDE IN KAYAK CRAFTMANSHIP

Three hundred kilometers to the west, surrounded by cliffs and currents, Holy Island lies like a severed pinky off the mitt of Anglesey Island. The Sea Kayaking UK factory sits just south of Holyhead’s Old Harbour and the town’s busy seaport. Inside, seat and coaming molds stand amid years of resin stalagmites, like a Technicolor petrified forest. Reels of fiberglass hang above workstations, where work orders list each kayak’s customization and destination: Japan, Finland, Israel.

At both factories, there’s tremendous pride in production, and a lot of cross-pollination of technique, shape, process and even people. Valley co-owners Jason Buxton and Peter Orton are both former members of the British freestyle team. Buxton went on to work for Pyranha and Orton for P&H. When the two companies merged, Buxton and Orton found themselves colleagues once more. They later purchased Valley, which produced its first boat, the Pintail, for Nigel Dennis’ paddling center. Dennis, in turn, founded Nigel Dennis Kayaks, now Sea Kayaking UK.

While the owners are serious long-time paddlers, the dedicated workers who built our kayaks—and perhaps yours as well—generally are not. Rather, they are craftsmen who appreciate the steady work creating respected products. It might 
be a dirty job, but the result is undeniably beautiful.

“It’s quite nice to create something,” says Buxton. “We’ve lost more workers to retirement than anything else—we’re passionate about what we do.”

Inside a kayak workshop in UK

Sharon and Alec Bloyd-Peshkin are the founders of Chicago-based Have Kayaks, Will Travel Paddlesport Coaching (www.havekayakswilltravel.com).


This article first appeared in the Summer 2014 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine.  Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid, Adventure Kayak and Canoeroots.

Clearwater Kayak Festival 2014

Photos: Courtesy Clearwater Kayak Festival
Clearwater Kayak Festival 2014

The 2014 Clearwater Kayak Fest was a huge success this year. An annual event that was created by Ben Earle in 2007, the fest continues to grow in popularity with paddlers. As always the river delivered the goods with some big water levels for paddlers. The Clearwater River is famous for its high volume push and big features. The fest is also famous for its paddle party on Saturday night!

As usual there were paddlers from around the world at the event. Competitors came from Chile, Australia, Argentina, America, and Canada to compete, paddle and party!

The festival kicked off on Friday night when paddlers pre-registered, drank beer, ate chili, and got things started.

Saturday the Down River (DR) race was held on the 3-kilometer section of the Middle Canyon. There was a free shuttle and lunch for paddlers.

High levels and a dry land mass start kept things entertaining.

Issac “Hippy” Carter (Australia), was the winner of the men’s race. Ashley Taylor & Rose Beagley (Canada) tied for first in the women’s race. 

There were plenty of spectators who had great views of the race as competitors paddled through the final rapid, Shane’s Demise.

After the race everyone paddled different sections of the river till dusk. The party and camping was held outside of town beside the Thompson River. Over 300 people parked trailers, buses, trucks, teepees and tents to party for the night. The party lasted until dawn.

There was great prizes at the event including: SRT courses from Raven Rescue and Boreal River Rescue. Gift certificates from Level 6, True Outdoors and Western Canoe and Kayaking. Great swag from Undercurrents, Rescue Canada, Just Liquid, Liquid Lifestyles, BC Parks, Paddle Canada, and Interior Whitewater Expeditions (IWE). The t-shirts generously donated by NRS, were a huge hit. Endless Adventures offered a kayaking trip to Ecuador for auction. We are lucky to receive such great support for this event!

Sunday in the late afternoon kayakers rallied to shake off the hangover and join the freestyle competition on Pink Mountain. The levels were high and it was an old school big boat kind of contest! 

After the day kayaking paddlers headed over to the Wild Goose Hostel for the prizes to be awarded free BBQ and another raffle draw.

2014 Clearwater Kayak Fest rocked. Thanks again to all the volunteers and local businesses for helping to make it happen. Can’t wait for 2015! 

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Video: Tumwater Solitude

Photo: Screen capture Tumwater Solitude
Video: Tumwater Solitude
[iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/M3Nt1JC_-gc” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen ]

“Tumwater Canyon is among some of the biggest roadside whitewater sections anywhere. Located just out of Leavenworth, Washington, the Wenatchee River carves a 6000 foot deep gorge though solid granite. Class V and Class V+ is just steps from the guardrail. We followed 23 year old Sam Grafton as he lapped this big water section all by himself. Despite the guardrail approach and a state full of world class boaters, Sam could not get paddling partners for this section. As of this date, Sam has ran Tumwater’s big water 37 times this year, mostly solo. Subscribe to our Youtube channel to keep up with our latest adventure videos. 

Music: Strike-Stryv https://soundcloud.com/stryvmusic

From Icicle TV.

Skills: Golden Rules for Great Canoe Strokes

man and woman in canoe demonstrate 3 golden rules of canoeing

Andrew Westwood looks at the 3 Golden Rules of Canoeing, which are a set of rules that define how to make all your canoeing strokes as effective and efficient as possible.

AIRE Sabertooth Raft Review

AIRE Sabertooth Raft Review | PHOTO: KAYDI PYETTE

The Sabertooth 12 is AIRE’s new inflatable frameless go-anywhere river animal. We’d never have guessed that a raft 12.5 feet long and five and a half feet wide, with 20.5-inch diameter tubes could arrive in a FedEx box not much bigger than a tailgate cooler.

AIRE Sabertooth 12
Length: 12.5′
Width: 5.5′
Tube Diameter: 20.5″
Bow/Stern Rise: 29″
Waterline: 7’9″
Air Chambers: 4
Weight: 80 LBS
MSRP: $2,699 (no thwart) / $2,934 (one thwart)
www.aire.com

Rolled out by the river we went to work blowing the four chambers—two on each side. The welded-in cross tubes fill with the side compartments as we watch the Sabertooth take shape. AIRE’s two-layer AIREcell system boosts durability by protecting the inner air chambers with an outer orange or white PVC fabric.

The Sabertooth floor comes pre-laced and is raised above the waterline. It drains instantly, doesn’t stretch and won’t catch in the water to slow you down. At one end of the floor there are foot cups serving as a firm anchor point.

The Sabertooth can be ordered with or without a removable thwart that’s positioned using a simple pin and clip system—no lacing or finicky cam straps. For $250 extra it offers more options for seating, paddling and packing.

Everyone in the Rapid office has has different rivers in mind for the Sabertooth. Our publisher, Scott MacGregor, has had it pegged as the perfect mid-summer float tripper. Others are talking creeky big water runs like the Upper Petawawa (“Finding Flow,” Rapid, Summer 2002).

“We designed it for the people really wanting to get after it in whitewater,” says Sheena Coles, marketing manager at AIRE. “It’ll go big. Class IV and V for the experienced paddlers. It’s meant for big water but it’s also great for families.”

The Sabertooth has a 7.75- foot waterline that responds to every stroke. As soon as we launched from shore, we noticed this raft’s speed and agility.

The tubes have continuous curve, meaning their round bottoms have little surface area, which increases the hull speed by minimizing drag. Compared to a traditional raft, the Sabertooth feels like it moves over the water, instead of pushing through it, which also means less scraping on shallow river bottoms and slides.

AIRE Sabertooth Raft Review | PHOTO: KAYDI PYETTE

Sitting side by side, we each jammed a river shoe into the foot cups. This allowed me to push myself back towards the center thwart into a solid paddling position, far enough out on the tube to take aggressive strokes but wedged-in enough to feel stable and confident.

After a few minutes of forward paddling above our first set, we balanced our strokes and found our rhythm. The Sabertooth made short work of our early spring runs, pouncing over holes and leaping from eddy to eddy.

We were on the river during a guiding company’s staff training. When we were inflating the Sabertooth, a few older guides wandered over; they said it looked sort of like an old Shredder. Some of the younger guides were snickering, but only until they gave it a go. The Sabertooth is serious fun.

At just 80 pounds, the Sabertooth is an easy carry. Between the tubes at the bow and stern, two D-ring handles are perfectly spaced and comfortably shaped to grab and go for run after run, or for the long walk out of the Gauley.

We don’t do a lot of rafting here at the Rapid office and we don’t get to keep every boat we review, but we’re not going to let the FedEx driver anywhere near this one. EMMA DRUDGE


This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Rapid Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.

 

Video: AIRE Sabertooth Raft Review

Photo: Screen capture AIRE Sabertooth Raft Review
Video: AIRE Sabertooth Raft Review

This agile, inflatable, frameless raft is a go-anywhere river animal.