OR Madness, Zany Characters, Cool vids, SUP and New JK Innovations

Outdoor Retailer or OR each year brings most every manufacturer together in a massive launch for the summer to come.  It’s here we see the collective pants come down showing off new products coming for 2013.  Meandering halls are retailers getting the skinny on all the new offerings to come as well as media picking our brains to grab the biggest scoops of the coming year in advance.  Add the crazed, sandle-wearing outdoors professionals and you have madness.  Seeing old faces, putting some names to voices and emails has been incredible. But the big part of the spirit here has to be the buzz of innovation surrounding us in every corner of this show.  2013 is going to be COOL!

This show is for the retailer.  Its our time to show them what they can place on their store floors.  Meetings are booked and old familiar faces are showing up by the dozens, in amongst the reporters, cameras and the curious.  The good news… the Jackson Kayak booth is busy with 8 new products and many innovations to tease the wandering eye.  With many of our products in various stages of prototyping and testing, we are slowly letting the cats out of the bag on our 2013 line.  Here’s a glimpse:

The whitewater line sees a new Star wrangling in the performance of rockstar with the familiar user friendliness of the last Stars.  The Zen has a new sister, Karma, a new creek boat that takes advantage of the Zen’s speed, improved upon a bit and rounded off with the creek hull designed for the drops and slides, this boat is getting a TON of attention.  The Allstar will be out shortly!  Oh did I mention our new SUPerCHARGER?  Designed by Tony Lee with Hobie participation, this thing ROCKS.  Super stable, super sexy and is turning every head!  By far a run away big attention getter!  All are now GoPro enabled with pre molded in threaded mounts!

The fishing line has basically been upgraded to new heights giving folks what they’ve been looking for and more.  Our Coosa is going to be upgraded with RAM mount ready points, GoPro hotspots and a few changes like higher rod stagers and a front hatch that opens easier.  We also are adding a long awaited 12 foot Cuda to our list of toys to bring the speed of the Cuda to a shorter more versitile boat!  We hit the SUP market here too with the SUPerFISHal, our stand up fishing board!  Decked out with Ram mount spots, straps (not bungees) and stability to get you to all the hard to get fishing areas.  This SUP is cooler, dog and big fish ready!  Note that the HUGE innovation this year is our pre-drilled RAM mount spots on all our fishing boats!  No more need to drill holes in your kayak boyz and girlz! And finally, the Kilroy, our new sit inside fishing machine.  Damon Bungard and a bunch of other genius’ came up with a fully decked out addition to our fleet.  Inside rod holders, hard decking, webbing for storage all over the place, awesome kayak.

The Rec line has a new SUP as well, cool lines of the FISHal but with more versatility for the average recreational paddler.  We are also  introducing dealers to our new Cruise 12.  This boat is a full family craft.  Cruiser for mom, fun and easy to maneuver for kids and accessory ready for dad’s fishing.  Great boat that takes advantage of much of the innovations you’ve seen over the past few years.

So to intro you to all our new toys check out JKTV’s Episode #8 and this link to our New in 2013 page (note that these pages are being built up and product launches will happen over time).