Fun 1 Review by a Dad

March 3, 2006

EJ,

Just wanted to thank you for the great boat you’ve designed in the Fun1.

Back around Christmas my son, Josh, and I took a tour of the old Rock
Island facility (thanks John and Tom). While we were there, Josh ‘tried
on’ a Fun1 and a Fun 1.5 and I saw the huge difference that a properly
sized boat could make. I had been planning to buy him a Fun 1.5 (has
some growing room) but changed my mind after seeing how well the Fun1
fit him and how loose the larger boat was on him. Well, last Friday
Josh’s ‘slime green’ Fun1 arrived and he was so excited that we ‘had to’
take it to the water immediately. Forget that the air temp was around
60 degrees and the water temp a good bit cooler – he had to take his new
boat out on the water.

So we head down the street to our friendly neighborhood TVA lake and
minutes later we’re in grin city (see the attached pictures). The Fun1
should have one of those Road Runner & Coyote ACME stickers "Just Add
Water". We didn’t have a skirt yet, but even without one Josh had a
blast. With the Happy Feet and the outfitting pads, we had the boat
fitting him like a glove in about 3 minutes. After about 10 seconds on
the water he unintentionally stood the boat on its edge (far enough that
water was coming over the rim of the cockpit, but the boat fit him so
well that as he instinctively braced with his paddle, he was able to
bring the boat back underneath him and keep on going. I’m sure that if
he’d been in a bigger, loose-fitting boat he would have flipped or
swamped it. We paddled around for about 30 minutes with me trying to
impart some of the basic ideas from your ‘strokes and concepts’ and by
the time we were taking out, he had progressed from paddling in circles
to paddling towards his target along a fairly straight path.

We’re really glad to have you guys in Tennessee. Keep up the good work!

Stuart Everett
Kingsport, TN

Josh happy

Josh on the move

Josh solo

Josh thumbs up