A review of the Big Dog Flux, a whitewater kayak, from Rapid magazine.

Honda Racing fairing kits, a Guinness record setting English Channel kayak crossing, motorcycle land speed record attempts and benchmark- setting whitewater, sea, surf and squirt kayak designs. What do these things have in common? For the players behind British upstart Big Dog Kayaks, it’s the seeming contradictions that are the strengths of this emerging brand. Big Dog’s line-up of eye-catching kayaks benefits from the diverse pedigrees of its designers. Popping up on English boating forums as “3wisemonkeys,” co-owners Peter Orton and Jason Buxton and sales manager Andy Whiting are all former members of the British freestyle kayak team. Orton and Buxton are also ex R&D department heads at P&H and Pyranha, respectively, while Whiting was involved with Riot and Peak UK.

The company’s stealthy launch into a severely depressed market in the spring of 2009 surprised many industry pundits, but Orton stated he was excited by his fledgling brand’s fresh, if inauspicious, start: “It will live or die entirely on the strength of what we do.”

Playful riverrunner

Three seasons on, the Big Dog website bills the brand “Britain’s fastest growing whitewater kayak company.” Cheeky. Although the boats are still scarce in North America, Big Dogs are creeping across the pond with containers of Orton and Buxton’s popular Valley sea kayak brand.

So what are Big Dogs like? Former Riot frontman Corran Addison says they look like Dagger bred with Fluid (actually, being Corran, he writes on a U.K. forum, “Dagger had sex with a Fluid!”). The functional, no frills outfitting in our test boat used a twin ratchet backrest, aggressive thigh grips and a full plate footrest to adjust for a positive fit.

The Flux is Big Dog’s offering in the one-boat does- it-all “playful river runner” category. The combination of full volume and a planing hull is reminiscent of popular river runners like the Diesel, Mamba or Remix, but the Flux’s highly rockered hull has a feel all its own. Forgiving rails make for effortless crosscurrent charging, spinning on a wave and rolling, but less-than snappy eddy turns. Keeping your weight forward and driving aggressively from the bow avoids washing out on eddy lines.

An ancient Chinese proverb states: A dog in a kennel barks at its fleas; a hunting dog does not feel them. Raised on lean times, Big Dog isn’t whimpering at its biggest hurdle—getting butts in the boats. As Orton, Buxton and Whiting doggedly attack the North American market, expect to see more of these puppies in the future.

BIG DOG FLUX M / L SPECS

LENGTH: 7’3” / 7’7”

WIDTH: 24.5” / 25.5”

WEIGHT: 34 / 36 lbs

PADDLER: 100–190 / 150–240 lbs

MSRP: $1,049 US

www.bigdogkayaks.com

This article originally appeared in Rapid, Summer/Fall 2011. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.

Open Canoe Shootout | Mad River and Esquif | Rapid Magazine

This faceoff between two whitewater open canoes, the Mad River Outrage and the Esquif Zephyr, is from Rapid magazine.

The Esquif Zephyr and the Mad River Outrage are two often-recommended boats for paddlers seeking a canoe that inspires immediate con­fidence. Beginners and nervous boaters love them both, as do many old hands who’ve en­joyed decades of different designs. Beyond that, however, they don’t have much in common.

The hull material, design, stability and dry­ness are so different that it’s really no wonder these boats appeal to such a wide array of pad­dlers, all of whom will argue passionately for their favorite.

Esquif Zephyr

The Zephyr’s lightness is certainly appeal­ing—13 pounds less to throw over your head and straight-arm onto your roof racks, 13 pounds less to accelerate through an eddy. Outward flaring sides keep it dry even when the circumstances should cause it to fill with water. Its flat bottom makes it a surfing machine with an added bonus—the security of pronounced primary stability. Its sharp entry point and long waterline allow paddlers to accelerate the Zephyr with only a couple of strokes and carry speed easily.

The Twin-Tex hull—a comingled product based on reinforced glass fibers and thermo­plastic polymers—is where the Zephyr dream starts to fade for boaters looking for a hard-wearing canoe. The stock outfitting is factory-installed using an exotic two-part, space-age glue that requires vacuum bagging machinery to exert the necessary pressure to effectively make the anchors stick. Should your outfitting begin to release, the boat must go back to the factory or to an installer with a vacuum bagger for reworking. Hull damage requires special re­pair expertise that is also not readily available.

Mad River Outrage

The Mad River Outrage. Photo: Mad River

Mad River Canoe’s Jim Henry and Tom Fos­ter designed the Outrage as an asymmetrical, shallow-arch hull with extreme rocker—extreme because it starts almost at the center of the boat and rolls up five and a half inches all the way to the ends. The Outrage tapers both later­ally and longitudinally making it more maneu­verable and giving it better final stability than a flat-bottomed hull, though it doesn’t plane as well. The boat carves effortlessly and rolls up quickly when full of water. The larger Outrage X is also available, scaled up to carry paddlers over 200 pounds or folks who just like lots of boat around them.

The Outrage might buckle your knees as you heft it but the penalty may be worth paying. Its proven Royalex construction is resistant to im­pact in cruel river playgrounds and has a mem­ory to return to its original molded form. It is repairable by (almost) anyone who can open a can of epoxy and cut Kevlar cloth. Its outfitting is installed with vinyl glue and contact cement available at any hardware store.

The Outrage and Zephyr are both fine boats to recommend to a friend just starting out, or to paddle yourself for stable, lively fun. If endless surf and effortless portages back to the top of the play run are your top priorities, choose the Zephyr—just keep it off the rocks. If you prefer a super durable, go anywhere ride and don’t mind shouldering a few extra pounds, the Outrage is your faithful workhorse.

This article originally appeared in Rapid, Early Summer 2011. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.