Topic: New Hull for Villain @ $450 or.. Posted: 26 Aug 2013 at 11:30am
So Jackson will mail me a new hull for $450 and the outfitting of my Villain is in fine shape. I think they're giving me a good deal all things considered. That said, in the range near $450 I might be able to find something else. Should I cut my losses with the Villain? I pretty much consider myself a beginning creek boater so I have no real frame of reference for the performance of the Villain. I never swam out of it so that's got to be something!
hard to beat $450 for a new boat. If you don't want it, buy the boat, outfit it, and sell it for $900. you would be crazy not to get the new hull for $450.
in terms of the villain performance, it's a good intro creek boat as it's stable and boofs well. however, it won't hold a line so is not good in big water and not very good in technical boulder gardens either. it has low performance relative to other creek boats, including the karma.
an alternative one possibility would be to ask if you could get a reduced price on a new karma, which is a much higher-performing boat, although you would have to pay for the outfitting.
sitting all alone on a mountain by a river that has no end
Good advice.
Both the Karma upgrade option, and the "keep the cheap boat" option. I'd say how bad can the Villain be? I mean, I've seen the shape and yeah it is still "round" and soft on the edges, which means it isn't as closely following the trends of creekboat design, but...
Dude, my first plastic boat was a Corsica S. Just like the one Elizebeth Tarr is boofing on the cover of the washington guidebook. Man, when I got in that boat, it felt all puffed up full of volume, short (10' long or so), stubby, and wide. Felt like a fu*kin bathtub compared to what we had been paddling before that (I think I got that Corsica S in 1993). I loved it. I had a real creekboat! It enabled me to really step up my game. Run the the North Fork Payette and feel good about it. Run the Clarks Fork of The Yellowstone, and take it to Costa Rica, that sort of thing...
All that to say that the Villain is light years ahead of that Corsica S. You could follow the advice and pursue a Karma upgrade, but I would just get that cheap hull, then boat it hard till you destroy it. By then you'll have much more developed experience with creeking, and know a lot more about what kind of performance you want to feel. And you'll know how to take better care of that next brand new boat so it lasts you at least a little while. Keep the villain around then as your beater boat, friends to borrow, ect.
I wonder what Water Wacko (should be Jackson Wacko) has to say about it... I know he was into the villain for awhile, as Chipper was
Water Wacko would totally try and sell you on Jackson !!! haha..
The truth is like JP is saying that there is inherent advantages and disadvatages to any kayak regarding performance. However if you you aren't a top notch paddler you might not have the skills to tell the suttle differences between what type of performance you like ? which is all personal preference anyway. the pros who are getting free boats and paddled the villan on the Royal Gorge, Stikine, ect... may or may not have had performance issues because the Karma wasnt even out yet and you dont know any different. If your really really good you could paddle a bath tub and hold a line and make any kayak look good.
keep it cheap, paddle that boat hard and frequently as you can and just get seat time creeking and start to develope your creeking skills then you can decide, hey I like edges or no I dont like edges and here's why for me personally... good luck. remember the kayak doesnt make you a good paddler but there are designs that are helpful for forgiveness... ie. displacement hulls and appropriate volume for your weight ..... just my 2cents
" If your really really good you could paddle a bath tub and hold a line and make any kayak look good."
YeAh Fluid!! That's my point exactly!!
And while we are on the bathtub tangent, I got to tell you about my frequent fantasization of paddling a CLAWFOOT BATHTUB down Boulder Drop. Oh, I'd remove the clawfeet of course- they would just get hung up when you went to boof Ned's. And you'd want to have a drain plug as well as seal up the holes where the hot n cold pipes come in... Not to mention a custom skirt with, like, three to five implosion bars that would probably need to be about 3" wide... Oh yeah I've thought about this. Yes Cast Iron would definitely sink, so really you'd neet to pull down a fiberglass mold of the tub. At this point, it would be forgiveable to remove the hot n cold valve holes. But you'd have to leave the drain for authenticity, and adding grab loops would be prohibited. No chines, either- I ain't EVER seen a clawfoot bath tub w/ chines on it. Displacement hull all the way, baby!
Sounds like an aweful lot of effort for a novelty stunt, tho huh? I'm lazy, so I'll just stick with the sophisticated bathtub boatI already have (the Shiva, currently). I'll let some more industrious, motivated fool run with that concept. Just remember that when that kid uploads his Extreme Clawfoot Bathtub Challenge, you heard it here first, folks! I will be content to incesantly brag and boast of the idea later. Hell, I'll even register on Playak, Eddyflower, and Mountain Buzz for those braggin rights....
And while we are on the subject of Jackson---
**please note that the following post is in NO WAY any kind of dis on Jackson. So don't try to misconstrue it as such. I admire the way that guy has single handedly shaped the sport, not to mention that his products, love 'e or hate 'em, have a distinct identity on the market which is a good thing**
Ok--
So as a craftsman in the construction trade, I couldn't help but notice a certain brand of PLASTIC WHEEL BARROW on the market with the brand name of Jackson. They had them at Home Dipsh*t for awhile- maybe they're still there.
Bret, I'd laugh my ASS off if it turned out to be the case, but...
Does EJ make wheel barrows on the side?
How fu*kin cool would it be to paddle a WHEEL BARROW through Boulder Drop? While the bathtub would be used for creekin' and big water, the wheel barrow would of course be the natural freestyle compliment to the tub.
Again, similar design considerations would have to be made just to have some practical feasibility of getting the thing out of the put in eddy. You'd need a similar custom skirt with a custom overthruster. It would be acceptible to remove the actual wheel, but I think the handles are integral to the design, even if they needed to be redesigned (with some progressive rocker perhaps?).
Imagine the new freestyle maneuvers waiting to be discovered, such as "The Ditch Digger" and the "Lansdscaper"...
Last post on this thread, I promise--
I won't even get too deep with the WERNER Ladders, but imagine someone doing the first Descent of Dipper Creek using nothing but a Werner Ladder (and appropriate whitewater gear, of course-- you'd need those elbow pads and a full face helmet for sure...
Ok this has gone far enough. To bring it back on topic, I think the Villain is just fine. Peeps have run some serious Gnar in that boat. Bret has logged plenty of enjoyable Robe laps in one, to be sure. And that design has infiltrated much more epic gnar around the globe than our humble, local Robe, also to be sure. Any creekboat in the last five years is generally pretty solid, but if someone has a counter point to that last statement, by all means lets hear it
For max points you'd have to OC1 the tub of course. It would be cheating to put a deck on it.
Ok, point taken. I was speaking purely within the context of kayaking, but you are right, the clawfoot tub would be more "historicly accurate" as adapted to the OC-1 configuration. Having a skirt would be more of an anachronism, since by the time the whitewater kayak hit the scene, most household bathtubs were of the 3 sided tub surrounds we are mostly familiar w/ today, and those simply would not be suitable for any river running what so ever.
the villain is not bad. but i wasn't really into it so much as i needed a boat and found a cheap one, then broke it and got it warrantied. it was good for where i was at as a boater at that time.
however, there are a number of issues for me. first, 93 gallons it's too small for me, believe it or not. second, i don't like the continuous rocker. good for boofing, but not much else. and frankly, boofability is over-rated. i guess it's pretty easy to adjust your line in the villain, but frankly, in the karma, i'm always on line, so that's not a problem, but the karma is way less rigid in its flow than the old pyrhana style (burn, everest), which i did not like when i tried them. i know that jon shelby had this same issue with teh stomper. he has told me he could reliably predict when the boat was about to get off-line. he went back to a planing hull. to me, this is a pretty big issue, as i always want to be paddling forward, not correcting.
second, the continuous rocker changes to the boat action too much with a little bit of fore or aft lean. again, this may be a volume issue, i don't know. third, carve = 0. and i don't agree that good kayaker = hold line. while skill is the most important thing, it's not the only thing. obviously, boat design makes a difference. there is a reason people want planing hulls for big water and playboating. i switched from the villain to a karma and my ability to stay on a line went up exponentialy, in addition to my confidence. it's possible the villain just doesn't fit me (too small), though, and other people have a better time of it.
i trully saw the limits of the villain on jefferson creek. so if you're looking to step up your game, get rid of the villain. if you are planning on staying an intermediate boater, then the villain is probably a good choice. of course, it's all a matter of preference. i like the karma, but other people dislike eric jackson and won't buy his boats. for me, i need a 100+ gal boat, and that severely limits the options.
in addition, i hate to say this, but i am becoming very skeptical of jackson's new plastic (post-2012)...i broke the seat out of my new karma the second day. gordon imploded his stern demoing a karma on limpwrist. i got a replacement boat from the store, which also has a dent in the stern on the bottom after minimal use. i am beginning to see a pattern....
Edited by chipmaney - 29 Aug 2013 at 6:36am
sitting all alone on a mountain by a river that has no end
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