Jesse is loving his Super Hero more and more, and so are his friends

By Jesse Coombs

Hi Everyone,

The Super Hero just keeps getting better and better! If I could reach through your computer and pull you onto a river trip with me with a couple Super Heros I would. This boat has set the new mark of what a river running creek boat needs to be. By combining all the best technology and top of the industry experience in boat design Jackson Kayak has created the new gold standard in river running creek boats.
In marketing the traditional wisdom is that you can have this (small size of your cell phone for example) or that (performance and features in your cell phone for example) but not both. Well this just does not meet customer demand anymore as both size and performance are requirements. Jackson Kayak has taken this ‘AND’ not ‘or’ philosophy into designing the Super Hero with beautiful results.

The Super Hero does it all, and does it all well. For starters, it provides all the things you know a Jackson Kayak will deliver including comfort, stability, easy to roll, safety and durability. But believe me, that is only the beginning. The Super Hero is the creek boat I have been dreaming of for some time. I have always believed that I wanted my creek boat to combine the latest hull technology AND creek boat volume. Now I have that. One of my greatest joys in kayaking has come from taking playboats on harder rivers, and now I have a technologically advanced hull with a creek boat deck. Sweet! The Super Hero allows me slice, dice, turn on a dime, slide slip, ride over and carve all the currents on the creek while having the volume to stay on top of the water in the holes and hydraulics. Maybe that is the thing I have never materialized in my head until just now. What is the difference between class 5 and class 3? Regarding hydrology it’s just the power of the water and busy-ness of the activity. The river is still just made of water and rocks. The laws of physics governing water are no different, there is just more going on. So I don’t want a boat with a less performance hull because there is more stuff happening. I want the same cutting edge technology in the hull of my boat with the volume to keep me on top of the hydraulics. And that is what I have in the Super Hero. I have done a lot of great creeking over the years, but I know that my best creeking is still in front of me when I now have the Super Hero as my companion.

And the Super Hero is also a perfect companion for traveling and exploratory kayaking. The Super Hero combines a long water line AND a length just under 8′. This means it is very fast yet still fits in all the small eddies above the big drops. The Super Hero fits perfectly under a South American bus AND has plenty of volume and space in the back for your overnight and rescue gear.

The Super Hero combines the best of all worlds, and you’ll see me using it creeking every chance I get on every river I can to every place I can travel. I hope that is a clear indication of how much I like this kayak.

I paddled the South Fork California Salmon with Devin Knight (of No Big Names fame), and let him borrow my Super Hero. It wasn’t easy for me to do, because I want to be in the boat every chance I get. But I am also stoked to have others see for themselves how great it is. He literally tore up the river. It is a class 4+/5 run with some really great rapids, and he kept taking the hero lines. He wouldn’t take the main line with the main currents, he would cut across them to make the hard moves and make them look easy. After every section of rapids he would look back and smile at me saying he found something else he loved about it. Some of his personal favorites were the rear rocker for great boofing, the long water line and speed, the edges and hull and the 87 gallons to keep the boat on top of the water. He just loves the boat and started calling dealers the next day to see about getting one for himself. We had agreed that we would switch boats back half way through the run, so I could use my favorite creek boat. But I figured he was loving it so much I wouldn’t ask for it back from him and let him use it the whole day. It occurred to him with two rapids left that we were going to switch (very thoughtful 🙂 ) and was glad to hear that he was staying in it for the whole day.

His quote of the day was "The Super Hero just took this river down a class from 5 to 4". These are pretty glowing words from a guy who has done some of the hardest first descents out there.

Best

Jesse

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P.S. Check out this great article in April ’07 Men’s Fitness: http://www.jessecoombs.com/media/mens_fitness/mens_fitness.html