Update on all things Jackson, by EJ, Spring 2006

April 4, 2006

The first three months of 2006 have been epic and busier than any of my life. We are throwing our heart and soul into a variety of projects, and prioritizing them is practically impossible.

In a nutshell, the following things are top priority for me, and my family, and staff:

1. Paddling: Emily, Dane, myself, and the Jackson Kayak team all want the best from kayaking. Our competitive team is working hard to be the best they can be, with the hope that that means better than the competition. Our factory team is a motivated group. While we never give the air that we are “training”, that is because it is fun to try to be the best, and it is truly play. Like any obsession, it takes time and money to find good water to paddle on daily. Our Africa trip sufficed for our winter training, and put us in a good place when we returned to the end of winter in the USA. Rock Island is a perfect place to paddle all spring and is a low cost, high fun, and great training ground for the season. After 1.3” of rain last night, the creeking is awesome here too.

2. Jackson Kayak as a business: Our first quarter has us up 109% in sales over last year at this time. In order to more than double our size, we had to be able to make more boats too. John Ratliff, and Dave Olson lead the charge in opening our new facility in Sparta, TN, in which we closed on the plant just a few days ago. Leisure Trends Group (they track sales by retailers to you the customer) sent out their January/February results and has Jackson Kayak #2 behind Liquid Logic, with Dagger in #3 position and Wavesport as #4, and Pyranha as #5. We were the top seller of whitewater boats in February, according to Leisure Trends (this is for USA sales only, I don’t have a way to get the international numbers, bummer)

OK, while you are reading on- it has been two days since I started writing this update! We got 1.3” of rain Sunday night and we headed to Pine Creek on Monday and Brave Wave today!

I am off topic, but I am more interested in showing you what my top priority is, Kayaking!

Monday: Pine Creek, 15 minutes from Rock Island and it starts with a vertical full 30’ falls with a bit of a shallow takeoff at 4” on the gauge, but a nice boil at the bottom. Stephen and I did two runs, while Clay shot video. We also got some photos and then it was Clay’s turn. Stephen has the photos of Clay on his camera. I will get them up as soon as he emails them to me. Below the falls there are several super fun rapids (Stephen has those photos too) and then a hike back out (no shuttle needed!) We all had sweet lines down the falls, nobody tipped over or got hurt. Before we went to Pine Creek we went to the rock island hole because they were planning on opening up 4 gates. We rushed to Brave Wave but what we got was a flash flood and too many trees coming through! So we bailed and headed to Pine Creek.

Today (Tues)- Brave Wave kicked in at 11am at a prime level and we rushed to it (all three minutes of rushing) and Stephen, Clay, Dane, Stephen, and Jeremy himle all got in as much as our body can handle. Every move you can name can be done on that wave, sweet! Combos, McNasty, Helix, big air, everything, super duper clean spins, etc., etc. SWEET!

Got to go eat, that is a top priority too!

Oh yea, they poured the basement floor today (after dropping a tree on the foundation walls this weekend, no damage, really)

Two days to launch in the RV (until October) I really need to pack.

🙂 EJ