The Sidekick

By Dane Jackson

Last Thursday I was expecting to have the first Sidekick ever on either Friday or Monday. But my mom came down to the basement on Thursday and said that the Sidekick arrived. I was super excited to hear that it was in. I went to the plant with my mom and saw the sidekick and was like “sweet”! I was so happy on how good it looked. I got all the samples that we needed to build it. I got the front and rear walls, the beam, and the bulkhead. I had Mark from the plant trim it and get it ready to build. Once he was done with that Nick and I put the boat together. I was really bummed once we finished because I really wanted to paddle it. I had tonsil removal surgery last Monday, and the doctor never said I couldn’t paddle. But he said to just be home in Tennessee for 2 weeks. I made it 5 days before I couldn’t wait any longer since the Sidekick arrived. I got invited by a friend of mine to spend the weekend at his house and we would paddle spring creek. It is like a class 2 run, but I knew that I shouldn’t paddle anything really hard because of my surgery. But I really really wanted to paddle the sidekick, so I went anyways to paddle the sidekick. I paddle it on Saturday on spring creek and it was awesome. The boat was so sweet, it was easy to roll (even though I wasn’t exactly allowed to roll), it was super stable, easy to boof, and I just loved it so much. Once we got back to the house I looked at the footage and hung out. The next day we went to this like 6 or 7 foot boof called Johnson’s falls close by. If you saw the punk rocker promo that I made last winter, this is the same drop. It is only 2 feet deep at the landing, but it is a fun boof. I paddle the sidekick, and it was a blast taking it off something like that. It just was great to be paddling as well. I ran it maybe 10 times before I was done. I did just a bunch of boofs and I never missed one. It was a really fun day. That whole weekend was a blast. I got to paddle the sidekick for the first time and I got to paddle for the first time in a week (that is a long time for me). Well, Don’t forget to check out jacksonkayak.com every day for new updates. Also don’t forget to check out the sidekick for your kids. I hope you like the video (Quicktime 2.5 MB) and I hope you like my update. And see you on the river,

Dane