Right, I'll keep adding to this thread, bit by bit. A few points to begin:
I'm not being paid to do this nor receiving benefits of any kind.
I'm not looking for a sponsorship deal with Jackson Kayaks.
I have no axe to grind with Jackson Kayaks.
I'm not going to give the Cuda 14 an easy ride.
I'd rather spend from now until the end of the year in my Scupper Pro (it's lighter, faster, surfier and fits me).
That's that for now. My Scupper is now with Garry until the end of the year for him to use, my Tetra with Paul for his dad to use, My Necky in my brother's barn. No distractions except the RRRapido when it's surfy.
My intention is to thoroughly field test the Cuda 14 in fresh and saltwater in a winter environment. It is going to be scratched and scuffed and scraped and covered in slime and sand and mud and sh!t. It will never be the same again. So, thanks to Zoidberg and Jackson Kayaks for having the balls to put it into my hands and my unbiased and brutal barbarian hands and any questions please ask away on this thread, also any requests for sensible things for me to do or try with it, information for me to look at bits etc. I want to be thorough and I want to feedback what I can to any and all interested parties.
Let's rock and roll.
Day 1. 20/13. Picked up from Philpot, coffee drunk, walkaround done, brought home, left until tomorrow.
An hour later, not left until tomorrow. Camera mount attached to bow for recording tomorrow's initial trialling.
Half an hour later, full length anchor trolley fitted to right side.
That'll do for the time being. Used so far - one longer screw and a camera mount for the ATC9K, two pad eyes, four rivets, 30ft of cord,6 inches of bungee a stainless so-ring, a stainless carabiner and a small pulley block.
Plan for tomorrow:
Record launching and landing with seat off, down and up. Record self rescuing. Record dropping and hauling anchor mid-tide. Paddle about a bit and get initial impressions. Weather looks suitably poor - might blood it with a cod if I can be bothered to try.
Part one:
Cuda 14
Length: 14’3″
Width: 30.5′
Weight: 80lbs
Capacity: 400lbs
Scupper Pro TW:
Length: 14'9"
Width: 26" |
Weight: 55lbs
Capacity: 400lbs
Snapper 40
Length: 5’10”
Width: 14”
Weight 180lbs
Capacity: 1/4lb. With cheese.
That’s the specs. I’m about average UK build, in reasonable shape for age though I’ve been smoking and eating crap for too long, I’ve launched over a hundred times per year since 2007 (didn’t count 2006 launches which was when I started). I paddle, surf and sail sit on top and sit in kayaks year-round, fish fresh and saltwater for anything from an inch to a few feet long, work nights so the days are free for yakking and generally know my arse from my elbow. My usual mount is an Ocean Kayak New Zealand moulded Scupper Pro TW, the last incarnation of the first and most seaworthy plastic sit on top yet produced. This does everything well in terms of the kayaking side of things but does misbehave at anchor at times, has limited working and storage space on deck and everything gets wet. It’s long, low and mean. A snake of a yak. My current mount for the next couple of months is a US moulded Jackson Kayak Cuda 14; a bit shorter, a bit wider and a fair bit heavier. It’s also low. How it performs is what I’m planning to find out. It’s natural that I will directly compare it to my usual ride however this isn’t really fair as it’s more targeted to a different build and application and is more akin to the Trident 15 I used to paddle for a couple of years.
I mentioned that the Scupper has a long pedigree. The Cuda, however, doesn’t. It’s one of the new breed, a large fishing platform designed primarily for fishing large expanses of flat water rather than the huge swells of the Pacific and has only been around a year or two; Jackson Kayaks themselves having been around for ten years. Young company + young minds = fresh thinking. Good.
First impressions before getting wet.
Images: Big. Fat. Cumbersome. Wind-catching. Dry. Heavy.
Oh, but hang on. That top view looks alright. Ignoring the seat it’s got a good shape, well-proportioned and looks rather fishable as well as a decent paddle. The bow looks good too – pointed enough to move through the water but not so sharp and flared it takes all the buoyancy out of the nose and flips you under if you don’t keep it high when landing through surf. Good internal and external storage, a centre pod and I don’t have to shell out for some tubes behind the seat. Which makes it almost ready to fish from. Don't like that deckchair though.
Specs: Big. Fat. Heavy.
Well yeah. Heavier than a Trident 15 by a large chunk, heavier than an Ultra 4.7 by a bit. Wider than both but not by much. Shorter than both by a foot or so. Narrower and longer than the Big Game though, but still heavier. I’m not looking at other brands to compare simply because I know the OK stuff inside out and to be honest so do most of the UK kayak anglers…but you see where I’m going with this? These are the big, stable, direct competition and the paddlers of these are the guys this boat might best suit.
Yeah, and I still hate the seat. Everyone is sticking deckchairs on kayaks now and I want a low centre of gravity with a scooped out arse-hole. I don’t care about the water because I’m a Brit and I wear drygear most of the year because it’s always cold and it’s always raining.
So…from pics and paper it looks like I’ve let myself in for a pain in the arse doesn’t it, no matter how well padded. I’m so bloody negative. Except that’s not the whole story. I can see beyond all that at the potential and I think it deserves more than a cursory glance.
In the flesh: Where’s it gone?
You know when you wake up after a night on the beer and you’re afraid to open your eyes in case you’re faced with a pig? Obviously it’s only ever been fear for me because I’m so devilishly handsome* that the fit girls push the mingers out of the way. Well, this wake up was pleasant too. Phil and his wife were staying locally and hid behind some bushes in a chalet so I drove down to get the Cuda, having dropped off both the yaks currently on my roof for friends to use in the meantime. You see I don’t NEED a Cuda and I’m not being paid or anything so this is all kind of altruistic and hopefully not masochistic; and hopefully will be accepted as honest. But that’s by the by. I get my first sight of the Cuda and wonder where the hell it’s gone. Yeah, it’s wide but it doesn’t look that wide. Looks fairly well proportioned in fact. I realise why – it’s low. I mean low. It doesn’t have that horrible wind-catching buoyancy of its competition. Hmm. That’s worth a few paddle strokes per mile I’m thinking. Doesn’t look all that much shorter than the Scupper and when we lift it it doesn’t seem all that much heavier. Of course my Scupper is quite a heavy one and has numerous bits attached – rudder, rails, ram tubes, balls, centre hatch blah blah blah. Okay, I can paddle this and I can fish from it. I’m feeling happier now. Still not convinced by the seat but that’s to quantify on the water. Clean, crisp mouldings, nice smooth plastic, really well finished. Loads of indents for rods and accessories, clearly thought through and with plenty of input from kayak anglers. All finer and dandy as long as it can perform.
Pre-Launch fettling.
First questions to answer is what it’s like as a kayak. So, launch, paddle, capsize, self-rescue, paddle, surf, land. I need a video camera fitted. It has a GoPro mount as standard but guess what? Snapper doesn’t use a GoPro. No, Snapper uses up to three Oregon Scientific ATC9K’s, a couple of GE DV1’s and an Olympus 6020. Snapper here needs to stick an ATC on the nose for what he has planned. Easily resolved this as I’d fashioned a mount previously for my RRRapido which just involved replacing the front screw with a longer one, mount attached. Job done. NEXT?
Anchoring. This is kind of the be all and end all. That’s what we do here. We don’t really use stake-out poles and the drift fishing option isn’t suitable in all places at all times of the year; same with trolling, that's going to be freshwater only now. I’m going to spend the next six months anchored in three knots of flow with plenty of wind and the ensuing chop and swell. So I need to get the drill out. Ten minute job – four holes, three knots and a handful of parts and the starboard side is fitted with a full length anchoring system. The Cuda 14 is now ready to rock and roll.
*the occasional lie is to be expected.
Off the roof and down to the sand.
This is morning and afternoon yesterday.
Right, so we know it’s heavy, we know that from the spec. It sounds heavy from the spec but just how does that weight translate? It’s similar in weight to the OK Ultra 4.7 but wider and shorter so the balance is going to be different and so then will the ‘feeling’ of the weight. Regardless, it’s still eighty-odd pound in weight, though I don’t have the seat on while it’s up on the roof so I’m not sure what it is that I pick up and hold above my head like some rampaging giant. It’s ‘balanced’ better than the 4.7 so the apparent weight is less than anticipated and being wider my arms are further apart which helps. It’s slippery smooth so I have to use the handles and though I can hold it over my head for a bit, 20-30 seconds I guess, it’s still bloody heavy. But so is any kayak over 13ft so I‘m surprised that I don’t find it unduly difficult. Yet. I stick her on the C-Tug and strap her up.
The seat comes out of the car. Bloody deckchair. Takes up quite a bit of space in the boot to be honest, hence I’m still being quite scathing of it, that and thinking it’s a silly idea. But that’s why I volunteered to hammer this yak, to see whether this concept was as bad as it looked or whether in fact it was alright and a good choice for some. The seat, really, is the reason why this is happening. Anyway, I sling it on the yak along with an anchor and a paddle and take hold of the front toggle handle. Oh dear. This is the first fitting I use and it’s not a good start. Even without the camera mount that bit of cord is too short and pulling the kayak on a trolley by this will result in skinned and bruised knuckles. I have replaced them on every kayak I’ve had so it’s not a Jackson issue specifically and at least, with a piece of cord, it can be changed rather than that awful fixed plastic handle on front of the Ultras. Quick-fix, I grab the web standing strap and loop that around it and drag the whole lot down to the beach. I’ve strapped it ahead of the ram mounts and loaded everything into the cockpit so this keeps the weight forward and it rolls easily enough, the weight is not yet an issue. Good.
Down to the beach without drama, unstrap the C-Tug…will it fit? Wheels and pads into the front hatch and yes, the arms, unbroken as hoped, also go in fine. Perfect, that’s a major tick in the box for the UK, easy stowage of C-Tugs without having to break your knees to collapse the centre strut. Anchor system will go in the centre hatch today as I’m going to be jumping in before using that. A 1kg Bruce, a fairly large buoy and a large McMahon SMB reel are swallowed with ease and I tighten the straps up fully and lock it down. Snug fit, better than I thought. A very good seal and far better than most of the other kayaks I’ve tried, some of which have been shocking. Same with the front hatch, very good seal.
From sand to sea.
Time to go in. I pull the kayak to the water, hold it there to wait for a couple of dumpers and make a complete hash of things because I’m holding the paddle leash (because the front toggle is so short) which swings it broadside and into me and I’m on my arse being pushed along with a Cuda, inverted, on top of me. On video. Luckily you can’t see it as the camera is in all the foam so I shall spare myself the embarrassment and no-one will ever know. If Jackson could only see how incompetent the idiot road testing the Cuda is they’d call out for beer and nachos and get everyone into the boardroom with a hired plasma wide screen.
I get it upright again and do what I normally do, watch and wait and go when it’s not too big. I’ll beast it a bit more later. It’s relatively flat when I do go and quite disappointing really. I don’t mount the kayak like normal, kind of get things arse about face and miss the seating area, landing too far forward with my feet out to the sides and my sack stretched to breaking point. The seat’s in the way when I manually hop backwards but it’s minor, really, just an adaptation required. I paddle out past the end of the groynes and head towards kiddie’s corner where the swells are hammering into the pier, rebounding and throwing up loads of spray. Halfway there, at a decent pace, I start to find some bigger water, nice and confused and the Cuda starts rolling around a bit. The weight – solid construction, fixtures and fittings – beds it in well and it sits there solid as a rock, rolling with the sea not in spite of it. No twitchiness, no balancing, counter-balancing, leaning or anything. Really, really, stable, more than I’d expect in this sea, being choppy, swelly and turbulent. I thought the seat (which I have in low position) would have made me feel really unsteady but…oh, hang on, the seat. That bloody deckchair. That stupid, windcatching, overly high tipping hazard. I’d forgotten about that. Totally. So here, in black and white, I will stand up and say that I have completely and totally changed my opinion of it. Within minutes. I didn’t alter from that for the rest of the paddle either. I just didn’t know it was there and it didn’t have any ill effect, even slightly. That was one huge surprise and the term bloody deckchair shall no longer feature in this text…we’ve got past that.
Oh, I tried the rudder. Really neat rudder routing but try as I might I couldn’t get it to stay down. It needs setting up and tensioning. Having left everything as is for the time being I just flicked it up out of the way and paddled the kayak as it would be in stock mode. So, the next step. Step. Step up. Yeah, you can stand on these, they have flat footwells for it and even a standing strap to pull yourself up and let yourself down with. OK that’s what I’m going to do. I know damned well that it’s a flatwater thing – I did it on the Chattahoochee when I fished in Georgia – not a lumpy, bumpy, windy, confused sea tactic. But before I do I give the coastguard a call on channel 16, get sent over to 67 and let them know that for the next two hours there will be a damned fool in and out of the water a couple of hundred metres east of Lowestoft in a yellow drysuit and green kayak. I let them know I have vhf, plb and mobile, pfd and drysuit too. I do not want a lifeboat coming out because somebody assumes that I’m not flailing around like a drowning chicken on purpose. That done – and I can tell they think I’m crackers, which may have an element of truth in it (the charters aren’t leaving harbour today because of the sea state) - I stand up.
I have to tell you that I don’t actually have particularly brilliant balance. That’s why I don’t have a surfboard or SUP. I can get to my feet, I can cope when it’s flat but this is way beyond me. I last a few credible seconds though before flipping off the side, as expected, intended and planned. The kayak is upright though…now I’m in the water and with a face full of North Sea it’s time for my first self-rescue. Up to the side, lean across…a longer reach than I’m used to but that plastic is smooth and slippery rather than grained like I’m used to. It’s not going to happen. So I move along a few inches and instead grab the side carry handle which, as the centre of balance presumably, is probably the best place to reach for anyway.
I float my feet up, kick and heave and get my chest on; the kayak tips up quite a lot and I am in unfamiliar territory which I’ll come to in a moment. I push it down, kick some more, get across eventually then fiddle and fart around until finally I roll my arse into the seat and sit up. Must have been a good five or ten seconds – I haven’t got the video to hand right now. I need to do that again. I last slightly longer standing and get back into the seat quicker too but it’s still a very poor effort on my part compared to what I’m used to. So, now we come to that. I’m used to being in the seat and paddling again in under two seconds. Okay, so it’s narrower so I can scoot across in one movement but my Scupper Pro has a more shaped hull and better secondary stability, this makes it an absolute breeze just so long as you keep your head low (as a beginner on it) or know the balancing point (as a veteran user of one). Now, we all know about primary stability and the Cuda has this in truckloads. It’s while putting it on edge that this becomes a liability, that’s when it’ll tip over – the tipping point is there on a knife edge – which of course makes it harder to hold it down when dragging your weight back in.
I guess all this was happening around slack water, high water slack to be precise. So I’d been paddling against wind only and it wasn’t noticeably slow. I wouldn’t say it was fast either but it was certainly not a problem. Now however the tide was starting to ebb. I had a look about half an hour later when I was at anchor on the phone – no fancy iPhone app here as I have no iPhone. Instead the yacht club has a live weather station online that was perhaps half a mile from me. It was blowing 19 knots southerly, gusting to low twenties. This in addition to the ebb, which runs from the south, and which picked up to about two knots in the time I was paddling. Oh, and the messy, choppy, confused and turbulent sea that was pushing from the south east. So I was paddling for a mile against perhaps the worst wall of nature I’d be likely to face on a normal day. It was a good test but that leaves the paddling speed and tracking for another day. I mean I could tell it was heavy and wide and I’d have been left standing against my clone in a Scupper which eats up that sort of challenge but I couldn’t do a proper evaluation of it.
So I struggled against the elements to the other side of the pier. Cockpit was dry, the eight scupper holes sucking the water clear without hesitation. Arse was dry too, the seat saw to that. I decided to show the tracking by running up inside the pier legs but as I began I veered off and through as it was just too dangerous; the tracking will be fine but skidding would be a problem with the swells in there and I just wouldn’t be able to manoeuvre if things got tight. So I went wave hunting.
Nice and lumpy here and I kept trying to catch one into the beach but they weren’t standing up enough until right in close. So I tucked in close and paddled beam on for a bit. I usually get rolled hereabouts in the Necky, cost me my Viking helmet and a gash one time. Really hurt because my head was so cold with the snow and everything. Well, not today, beach. Got through the nasty bit with barely a sideways glance. I suppose in one way things were getting quite boring, the Cuda taming everything I threw at it. Nothing else for it then. Anchoring, that’d be sure to show a weakness.
I paddled out about 300 metres, undid the straps to the centre hatch and started rooting around inside to pull out the anchor system. I did not pay the slightest attention to the sea. I didn’t have to, it was looking after itself! Slight issue in that my bottom anchor trolley line was beneath the hull and out of reach so I had to jump in to pull it up again (my fault). Then, clip the line through the carabiner, shuttle backwards and get all Heath-Robinson because I’d not got line that fit the cleat and the Ram tube tightener was in the way. I used that to lock it off instead, let a bunch of line out and sat and waited. There were lumps of water coming at me left right and centre as I sat back and started texting the conditions to the forum on my phone and generally just sitting around without looking or worrying.
I was dry, I seemed to be sitting straight, I was perfectly stable and I didn’t have my feet out as I usually do. Not sure how much lateral movement I had as there were no lines out to notice movement against but it certainly felt fine. Time to pull up then. Shuttling to the front I decide that I’m going to see how long it’ll take to flip me side-on in this sea. So there I am, sitting beam on to tide, swell and wind pulling against a Bruce anchor and nothing’s happening except my arm is getting tired. I’ve seen 4.3’s being dragged under on one side like this before, let alone my Scupper. I gave up trying to flip it and continued to the front then pulled the anchor in easily. Am I exaggerating the pressure on the kayak? Hardly, I snapped through the weak link and it came up reversed. But hold onto your horses, I wasn’t in a great depth of water so it might be different in the usual 40ft; none of this is all that conclusive as yet.
So now I’m done with that there’s not much else to do bar paddle back with a following sea and the wind at my back. It’s now most definitely wind over tide (and swell over tide) and I make rapid progress so I play in the lumpy bits, trying to catch waves, running at them, sitting side-on and just generally fooling around. I try rocking the boat to find the tipping point which takes a bit to reach and can’t quite be stopped with a lean and brace. So now it’s back in the water, pull the boat over into a capsize and then do another self-rescue. Arm under the side closer to me and I push up, the Cuda spins over on its axis and is upright once more. I climb aboard. I give it three or four goes and it becomes harder – tiring in a heavy wide kayak after this long hammering it.
Oh those lovely waves crashing in at the shore. I like the look of them. I can catch them. I try…have to get them rearing up before she’ll go. I get one, go into the turn and it breaks on me, side-on and I bongo in on one hell of a pounding foam, determined to stay on and I hit the beach still in the seat. I grin, as always when I land through the washing machine and head straight back out into the waves, going up and over and punching them out of the way.
The second ride in is brilliant. These are heavy, pounding, close-set breaking lumps, nothing clean about them at all, but I take off, shoot down the face, run along what face it has (ugly face) and cut back and over. HAHAHA!
I‘m loving this. I should be on my skinny little RRRapido for this, with thigh straps and all that rocker but instead I’ve got 14ft 80lb of flat bottomed, straight-tracking high-seated fishing plastic. Which cannot do what it just did. It doesn’t the third and final time though to be fair, I go too steep, dig the nose in without getting time to turn and take a swim, trying to save the camera on the nose.
That’s that then. I’m pretty stuffed now (really shouldn’t have taken the relief night shift last night) so I call it a day. Now, we all want to know about hatches and with the big bow and centre hatches and the smaller rear one you’d expect some water after 3 capsize practices, loads of wave-punching, some surfing and shoreline capsizes wouldn’t you. I look. Less than a pint. I take that in my Scupper just paddling.
Well, drag it up the beach, get it on the trolley and back home and onto the roof bars. Now, wet and tired, I can really feel that weight and the front toggle annoys me once again. Manage though and back home I lift it up and onto the roofbars. Tricky with slick wet plastic and the width makes it more difficult to load from the side than my Scupper but again I just need to modify my methods.
A few feelings.
So, thoughts on the initial paddle and hard workout? It handled everything I threw at it really well with the exception of battling wind, tide and swell combined. It was very comfortable and as dry as the conditions allowed. It was boring in its capability – imagine it as a van. And for now I have no qualms about fishing from it at anchor until the new year as it seems to be a very capable fishing platform with the only definite drawback as yet being the weight I’ll have to drag up and down the slopes at Hopton and Corton. Like I said, none of this is conclusive as yet but I do know for certain that I still have the better kayak for me and my needs. So, I have to out beginners and intermediates into it next, fish it, paddle it some more and start pulling each bit together. I think I am getting an inkling of who it might be good for – and it won’t be for everyone – and I have to say there’s quite a few of them.
I launched while Bruce was getting parked and had a quick go by the footbridge where I often see a bunch of silvers. Nothing doing and I was getting blown all over. I paddled back up and joined bruce who was now afloat and chucked my waggler across towards the other bank, the size 16 taking a good few minutes to dip under – autumn is here – resulting in a small roach. I didn’t need roach, I was after a few more competition points and had decided to get dace, perch and gudgeon today. I gave it a whirl by the pump; nothing and I got blown in again. Time to troll up river then.
Battling against the wind was the order of the day, lines were being blown into weed and the kayak would blow into the bank when I stopped to deal with the weeded lures. Every now and then I’d get ten minutes or so clear and after half a mile this gave me my first pike run; a baby taking my little fat blue and white plug. I love this plug!
We carried on up and after a while I gave up on the trolling. Bruce persisted though and was rewarded with his first kayak pike, a similar size to mine. I stopped and cast a maggot or two every now and then but only managed more small roach. Ellingham would be the place, I knew I’d get gudgeon there for sure.
I must admit I was fishing badly. Blamed purely on the loss of my lucky hat, I tangled my float rod many times, hooked myself in the hand with a lure treble, crossed trolling lines, caught trees, caught weeds, caught the bank, knocked rod and reels with my hand – pretty much every piece of incompetence was explored and I still had to contend with the wind which stopped me at times.
bruce, still trolling, had a better pike at around 3lb about two miles upstream from the launch at least and with the wind battering him and me taking pictures we both ended up in a right muddle.
Just short of the mill I stopped by a drainage pipe where ‘d had good perch in the summer. I couldn’t buy a bite here and my paddle decided to escape. Hand padlding against wind to retrieve it was interesting to say the least.
I got up to my chub spot and settled down for a dabble. Roach first and then another point – number 16 – a small dace. I had a bunch of these quite easily on the line between weed and the drop off at the neck of the millrace/river junction.
Up to the mill itself and over to the gravel bar. Clear water, not too deep and fry everywhere. I had a quick dabble for roach and then went looking for the gudgeon. There they were, a nice shoal and I dropped onto them, getting through the roach and traight into a gudgeon which fell of during landing. Second go and I landed point 17 for this leg. Now for a perch.
Nope, perch not forthcoming. Then I spy a decent pike in the 6-8lb range about 20ft away, lurking. Bruce has a livebait rod set up so I fish out a gudgeon – supposed to be a brilliant pike bait – and hook it on. 6ft away from the pike I drop it in. it’s ignored. I start to pull it coser and snag. The pike moves a bit while I jerk it free but doesn’t make a dash so I try again. I get it a foot away and still it’s ignored; I snag again and lose the bait, spooking the pike and it’s gone. Lures don’t pick it, or another up so I go back to perching. I have ten minutes left. Roach, roach, roach. Bruce has had one though. Finally, with a minute or two to go and I strike as the float goes under and up comes point 18. A tiny point, but a point. Perch!
I paddle back, leaving Bruce to fish some more; I have stuff to do at home. I troll for a bit in a clear area and drop two takes within 50 yards and then soon after stow the rods which are getting weeded out regularly. I’m still being blown about but that’s life. I get back to the Locks, the water has risen to a foot from the staging’s top and I have an easy out and head home. Hard going for 3 points and my back is aching. I want my summer back!
