Zat Raptor: Review

First appearances:

I think the boat looks great, simple and not too shiny... It's a bit longer than the large nomad for example and has slightly less rocker than a lot of other creek boats. Digging a little deeper the first thing I did was to check out the hull: It's not all that different from a nomad, slightly more defined edges, probably what some would call a semi displacement hull.

The next obvious thing to do was to jump up and down on the hull (with good reason). In my opinion one of the most important factors in any white water boat is how stiff it is. This will affect how strong the boat is and how quickly it reacts. The results of this scientific test proved the boat to be very stiff. The reason for this is that rather than a single stiffening beam along the centre of the boat, there is a diamond shaped equivalent, under the seat, which joins to straight beams, running the length of the boat.

Outfitting: The outfitting is basic but extremely comfortable. Setting the boat up takes about 3 minutes as all the hard work is done for you. The hip pads are fixed in with velcro and the foot plate padding slopes away from the ankles providing extra comfort and protection when it comes to pitons...

The seat is just a single piece of closed cell foam. It doesn't absorb water and weighs next to nothing.

Weight: This brings us on to how heavy it is... light! It is still a creek boat but unlike others the lightweight outfitting means that the weight goes where it needs to, making the boat tough!

On the water:

So my first trip out was a nice cruise down the upper dart, a bit of grade 3 – 4. Right from the off there are two things that are very clear: It is very fast and it holds a line like nothing else. On the way down the river I found myself hitting lines as I had done before in a nomad but the Raptor just felt more fun! The speed means that boofing, rock spins, grinds and all that free ride lark is effortless! I also dropped the boat into a couple of holes and waves – it surfs well for a creek boat - easy to get out of holes too (a slight difference to other boats may be that the balancing point on the edge is slightly further over so you have edge hard). It's easy to forget that this boat is quite so large...

East Oakment:

So this was my first trip on this river – a brilliant class 4 (5) gem on the North of Dartmoor. We had perfect conditions for it too. The river begins with a continuous series of slides that don't stop for around 1km! As expected the Raptor stepped up and performed brilliantly – it punches holes with ease, and most notably seems to really accelerate off drops and slides, ejecting you through whatever is at the bottom!

Moving down the river there is a 4m drop, the clearest line on the day was landing on a (very) shallow ledge. This seemed like the ideal place to do some plastic testing... All went well and the boat had barely a scratch on it!

South Wales:

I've had a couple of days up in Wales over the last couple of weeks. I managed to get a range of stuff done, high (ish) volume runs on the middle Tawe as well as steep creeks galore on the upper Tawe a Giedd. 

The boat performed well again but I learnt more this time about how the boat reacts in commiting situations. Firstly, as I mentioned earlier the boat tracks brilliantly, but it is key that you set up your line aggressively otherwise pulling the boat back in line late can be challenging. The same aggressive style applies to running drops, it's harder to get away with dropping in to stuff without much speed; this isn't hard to overcome as the boat has such immense acceleration that you can be flying in a matter of metres.

All in all, this is one of the best creek boats I have ever paddled and without a doubt it is the most enjoyable to paddle. It requires a slightly different paddling style to other boats on the market but in my opinion this style is the most effective for paddling hard water. It is definitely worth considering if you're in the market for a creekboat.

see here for a film of our day on the Giedd by Finn Burrows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dov6l32eDk0&feature=player_embedded

Sorry for the lack of action photos, Video coming soon. Thanks to Mike Moxon for the featured shots.

Thanks to: Zet Kayaks