Plastic surf kayaks

[greensurfer]

I could be in the market for a plastic surf boat and have seen three possibilities: Riot Boogie, Mega X RAY, and Mega Maverick anyone have any views on these three and whats the difference between them?

[DarrenB]

I've paddle the mega maverick, for a plastic surf boat i've got to say i was im pressed. the fins were a bit to far back, but thats more of a personal thing.
the best thing is there open to far more abuse before they even thing about breaking. so there great if your new to surfing.

Later
D

[RossC]

There are some comments in this thread

[Phil...]

Where are you based? If you are interested in an Amoeba Carver, I have one for sale in the NE, welcome to come and have a go if you want.

There's some info here: http://www.thamesweirproject.co.uk/foru ... 1ee8b4bb2f

Phil

[Tom_Laws]

http://www.thamesweirproject.co.uk/psk.htm


Tom

[GETWET]

I have plastic X-Ray and am very pleased with it. I am 5ft 10 and 11 stone. The performance is very good. its a bit tippy until you get on the wave, but after a few trips out in it i was confident.I used to paddle a big-ish ski which was axctually more stable and had less perfomance.I Love the X ray!

I believe the Boogie is much more stable, the person I bought the X-Ray off had both. Not sure if the performance was much below the X-Ray or not

[greensurfer]

Thanks guys I am drawn towards the Mega Maverick at the moment, really fancy some proper surf riding again although tumbling and spinning down a wave in my Orbitfish is fun it's not the real thing!

[shore-thing]

The best thing to do would be to try all contenders. I'd only think about the Maverick if you are too big or heavy for an X-ray. Amoeba's carver isn't quite in the same league unfortunately. The plastic is very thin, leading to a lot of flex and loss of energy.

[greensurfer]

Had a look at your x-ray shore thing, but it looks too similar to my playboat in dimensions I am really looking for something to run the line similar to the way a longboarder does with a few bottom and top turns but a nice fast creamy ride I want to gain fifty yards or more across the bay. I reckon at thirteen stone I should fit all three. The Riot looks too short in the stern.
One other point......how can Mega produce a craft for only £399 (without fins) when I have to pay £650+ for a decent playboat? Perhaps they should branch into the riverboat market?

[StoneWeasel]

how can Mega produce a craft for only £399 (without fins) when I have to pay £650+ for a decent playboat?

well one part of the reason they are so cheap is the outfitting, they don't really have any! you will need a big block of foam and several hours to get the boat snug but i don't see this as a bad thing.
The whole aim of the maveric and x-ray pe is to make affordable surf craft as composite surf kayaks are a tad expensive (and still have poor outfitting requiring many hours of foam carving fun) which i think they have sucseeded in doing.

[shore-thing]

I reckon Mega are only pricing these boats so low because the Carver only costs £360 so for the first time they have some competition. Nobody seems to know how long the special offer price will last for or what the RRP price will be. Anyway, the last thing we want is for Mega to start prodcing river boats, just think... poor after sales service, no local stock, non standard fittings, and another ghastly website clogging up the internet.

Hope you have fun in whatever boat you end up with!

[Andy Wilson]

I have a Maverick and I'm really impressed with it. When you take a look at it it is easy to tell why it costs nowhere near the price of a new design playboat:

It's no new radical (or even Mega ;-)) design, just a HP boat in plastic.
There are no fancy fittings or grab loops, drain bung or decent footrest.

It took a while to fit it out and work out where to put the fins (In the fin box, I know!), but now that it's done it is far better than any other plastic boat that I've taken surfing and does all the things that I wanted from a HP design boat at the price. I have a composite International Class surf kayak but it's nowhere near as much fun as the Maverick.

Only downside is that I spend flipping ages getting off the beach cos the fins get stuck in the sand!

I'm 5' 8" and 80 Kilos. the boat handles a bit wobbly at first and four inches of the hull are underwater, which is probably no different to a normal kayak but looks kinda weird. It paddles out back much easier than a river kayak and once on the plane is a doddle to carve back and forth. Also my normal river boat spraydecks fit fine (playboater and Reed), slalom decks are too small so if you are coming from river paddling then you shouldn't need to buy a new deck.

If you have a spare £475 (boat + fins + delivery) then you could do a lot worse.

Andy

[surfkayaks.com]

.[how can Mega produce a craft for only £399 (without fins) when I have to pay £650+ for a decent playboat? Perhaps they should branch into the riverboat market?[/quote]

Some interesting discussion on here, and now some answers.
The WW boat market is very much where all the hype and cudos is. It also seems that there is a new boat out almost every week, I have no idea what sort of production runs the ww manufacturers expect to get from a given model but the life span must be pretty short. therefore the payback on the investment in designing, tooling, marketing etc needs to be pretty quick also. If you figure tooling/setup/marketing etc costs in the region £25k-£30k and fairly immediate boat sales 500+ thats £50 ish /boat, add in manfacturing materials, £100 , production costs, overheads, boss's new car etc etc,then the manufacturers profit, then the figures soon start to mount up, then add in distributer margine, retailer margine, and pretty soon your £100 raw material kayak is selling at £600-£750

Of course there is another way.
Did I see a mention of a Mega WW boat Hmm!

[northernSoulBoater]

boss's new car etc

So what new car will you be buying with the money from all the fins that should be included in the boat price?

mention of a Mega WW boat

Which design will you be buying/copying first?

[greensurfer]

Oooooh nasty! I found a Maverick on e-bay and brought it home today looks excellent value to me especially as I got the fins and a deck thrown in too. Footrests may take some thought but the rest of it will probably do, as it won't be used every week. Surf boats don't seem to have changed that much since I paddled a 'shoe' in my youth. I would be interested to here what the ideal fin set up would be for this boat.





P.S. I don't really see why it's become fashionable to knock Mega on this board. It's a British product........you don't have to buy them.

[Andy Wilson]

I guess that you have to try the fins in different positions to find the best place for you but between middle and fully forward seems to be the norm for me and a friend of mine who also has one. Problem is that's closer to the certain of gravity and therefore digs in the sand even more!

For the footrests, I removed the pillar bouyancy and cut out a section along the bottom to allow my heels to fit in (then put it back). I put the foam that came with the boat down at the end, where it looks like its shaped for and then trimmed an old Pyranha fullplate foam block until it fitted onto the front blocks.

Good luck.

Andy

[wave skier]

Maybe a little late,but BCU and WCA are holding a surf weekend 5/6 th November at Rhossili Gower and Mega will be there on Saturday with a range of boats. Mega may be there Sunday too but not certain. Worth a visit if you want to try diffferent boats in the place they are designed to work. Weather looks half tidy Sat. Sorry I didn't read the thread earlier.
Harry.

[DannyT]

Have paddled a Maverick on the flat and it seemed like a nice boat.

Brother paddled it in surf and loved it.

[greensurfer]

Right, got it out in the surf on Sunday and wow does it go! It surfs just the way I wanted - down the line - bottom turns and top turns brilliant! However a six pack would seem a minimum requirement for the Maverick because the back rest is more of a bum rest and it feels as though the tail is less bouyant than the nose giving the abs a good workout paddling out through the surf. First impressions are: how can a boat this flat feel so unstable on flat water?
To sum up though it's a brilliant surf boat for the money and makes you realise how much a playboat is in the wrong environment when trying to surf properly. Judging by the number of Mavericks I spotted at Saunton and Croyde I think many others have discovered this gem.

[surfkayaks.com]

Check out this months "Paddles Magazine"
Free to enter competition to win the Maverick that they reviewed.
M

[shore-thing]

I guess that you have to try the fins in different positions to find the best place for you

Generally speaking having the fins closer to the seat position will give you greater manoeuvrability, so this position is best if you are just starting out or for when the conditions are smaller.

Moving the fins further back will give you a bit more straight line speed but it can be a little harder to turn (the fins will be further back than the centre of gravity which is naturally be the pivot point). Have the fins here in bigger conditions as you'll have more speed anyway coming into the turns and it's easier to outrun huge waves if you have to

I also saw quite a few Mavericks out at the weekend. Though most had no fins attached and so didn't stand a chance, this can only be good news for kayak surfing. Get out of your river boat and jump in to a dedicated surf boat - you wont believe the difference until you've tried it!

...and don't give up!

[gary bb]

Has anybody seen,paddled or otherwise the Mega Jester Bieritz?
I`ve tried the obvious route of e-mailing but they must have missed it.
I only wanted to know how much,how heavy and where from.

[surfkayaks.com]

Sorry.
Dont think I got your e.mail.
Please resend.
Malcolm

[James F]

Malcolm,

I didn't find the answer to the question in the text anywhere. What is the answer? Thanks and all the best.

Regards,
James

[surfkayaks.com]

The answer "IS" on the web site!!
Malcolm

[gary bb]

Malcom,to quote me,"I only wanted to know how much,how heavy and where from."
Ok,this imformation is obviously far to sensitive for a public forum.
I`ll send the e-mail again.

[gary bb]

Thanks for the e-mail Malcom.
I now know that the Bieritz comes without fins.Can I ask everybody here how or why a surf kayak can"surf" without fins?
Isn`t it then just a long playboat that slides sideways towards the beach,so much loved buy all the shortboarders out there?
I thought that fins were required for forward thrust?

[Phil...]

Thanks for the e-mail Malcom.
I now know that the Bieritz comes without fins.Can I ask everybody here how or why a surf kayak can"surf" without fins?
Isn`t it then just a long playboat that slides sideways towards the beach,so much loved buy all the shortboarders out there?
I thought that fins were required for forward thrust?

In the same way skis carve without fins.

The footprint in a wave of a kayak on edge is curved, (the wetted area) which makes the boat follow this curved 'groove'. Fins are useful when this groove is hard to set up, i.e. fast/steep waves because the hull is fully planing, when a surf kayak without fins is like riding a bike on a frosty day - possible, but turn to fast and away you go.

My experience of fins is they'll slow the boat down, no amount of clever angles or shapes will create enough extra thrust to outweigh the frictional and pressure drag, so they're just there to make the turns easier and avoid slippage if you're trying to beat that closeout.

Phil

[gary bb]

Thanks Phil,after about the third read I think I got that.
So in a word,I can live without fins then?
I was going to ask what a wetted area was but chances are that I`ll not understand the answer anyway,or the answer will be something to do with water and stuff.

[Fast Pat]

Thanks Phil,after about the third read I think I got that.
So in a word,I can live without fins then?
I was going to ask what a wetted area was but chances are that I`ll not understand the answer anyway,or the answer will be something to do with water and stuff.

No you can't, unfortunately Phil’s explanation is not correct, I presume by ski he means a snow ski rather than a surf ski, these turn by virtue of the arc produced by the difference in width between the tips and the waist – this is accentuated further in modern carving skis. If he did mean wave skis I have to state that I have never seen a wave ski without fins including those with concave rails that supposedly remove the need for tri fins.