My recent experience paddling my partner’s Pyranha Z.One has got me thinking.
I first paddled the Pyranha Z.One when it first came out, and I wasn’t really experienced enough as a paddler to make any sort of judgement about it. It was only recently when I decided to take my partner’s boat out for a spin that I had a bit of a revelation.
In short I absolutely loved it. It’s a very different boat to the Ozone, which some would claim replaced it. The Ozone is really a playboat that can run rivers, and as a result it is much slower than the Z.One, so it doesn’t feel quite as sporty moving around the river. The Z.One accelerates very quickly, within only one or two strokes, making attainments fun, as well as making it easy to position the boat precisely due to its responsiveness. It even boofs really well, too, responding excellently to a sweep boof style. Hit waves side on, and it stays composed, despite its narrowness, and it never feels tippy or nervous. It still has great edge to edge transition speed, however, and an extremely solid secondary stability.
The Z.One had an uneventful life while Pyranha made it. I often felt that Pyranha itself undersold it since a boat designed to make the most of grade 3 isn’t as sexy as a big creek boat falling off a waterfall. Particularly at the time of its release when playboats were out of fashion and if you wanted to be with the cool kids you did creek boating in big volume hulls.
The Jackson Fun Runner could be put into the same category as well. The Fun Runner is a boat that is often thoroughly derided by paddlers, and yet for anyone who has owned one or paddled one a lot, it is an absolutely superb river runner, with many similar traits to the Z.One.
Despite this, the Z.One was an incredibly popular boat with clubs, beginners, and smaller paddlers. But because it was often used by clubs and smaller paddlers it did get a bit of a reputation as ‘the beginners boat’, which is something that is both true, but also not reflective of its true capabilities. The Z.One was the best kept open secret of the Pyranha team, with stalwarts such as Chris Eastabrook using the Z.One for pretty much everything they did, even the hard stuff. In fact the last time I saw him, Chris was still of the opinion that his Z.One would need to be pried from his hands to stop him paddling it.
Pyranha, perhaps understandably, took the opinion that the Z.One was a bit long in the tooth. At the time it was discontinued it was around 10 years old, which is an almost unheard of run for a white water boat, but also a testament to how good it was. But what about a replacement?
The Ripper?
I’ve discounted the Ozone as a replacement, but what about the Ripper, particularly the Ripper 2? Pyranha itself would say that there’s a lot of crossover there, but I’m not sure I agree entirely. Yes the Ripper 2 is great for tailies, but it is still a boat that has been designed to be able to take on extremely difficult white water. As such it has a ton of volume up front, along with lots of rocker to help it skip out of drops. No doubt the Ripper 2 is a great boat, but because it has the traits it necessarily needs to run seriously hard, and big, white water, this makes a lot of boat to take on low grades. Unless you really know how to play the river with verticality, you are unlikely to get your hair wet on a run like the Tryweryn, for example.
Yes, you can tailie and rock splat it on your local G2-3 run, but there’s more to river play than getting vertical. What about the often forgotten aspect of fluid linked river moves, attainments and the like? This brings up the question of whether we need a new boat to replace the Z.One that is really fast, yet turns on a coin, is designed mainly to absolutely excel on grade 3, but can be taken on the occasional G4, much like the original Z.One. A boat that isn’t designed for big drops, but like a kayak equivalent of a really zippy, fun sports car. One that can tailie if you want it to, but is more focussed on river moves rather than river play. Enough rocker not to pearl on waves, but not so much that the hull ends up being slow. Enough volume to carry through stoppers, but not so much that it balloons in size like the Ripper. A hull that inspires confidence in beginners, but that experts can also make the most of.
Kayaks, like cars, have become larger and larger over time. The Ripper is a do-it-all boat for those who really do it all, but as I say, I still believe it to be an enormous amount of boat if you never intend to go above grade 3. Particularly for smaller paddlers and in-betweener weight paddlers, of which I am one. I’m an awkward size for boats, usually being at the upper end of small sizes and being on the low end for mediums. This means that I either end up with a boat that feels twitchy on harder white water, or the equivalent of a bathtub if I size up.
I remember when I still owned my small Ripper, I was doing some crosses at Jackfield once when there was high water, and hence some really nice waves. I found I kept over edging it, I was unstable, and it wasn’t really doing what I was asking of it or expecting. This had been happening for a while, and as a result I had really started to doubt my abilities, which in my previous Zet Veloc I had felt extremely confident in.
I asked Em if I could borrow her Z.One to do a few crosses in it just to see the difference. Straight away my old paddling self came back. I went back into the Ripper, and everything went to crap again. I don’t like to blame boats for lack of skill because I believe you need to put some serious time in to get to know the intricacies of how a boat needs to be paddled. But in this case I am: The Ripper hadn’t done my paddling any good at all.
When I paddled the small Z.One again the other day, it was the first time in a very long time that I felt like I was properly linked up to the boat rather than just sat inside one. The last time I had this feeling was when I owned a Zet Veloc. I really got to know that boat, and I always trusted it. It responded to what I told it to do rather than finding that I always had to boss it about.
My Exo Party Rexy is a great boat, but it is still a little on the large side for me, even though it’s a lot better fit than most other current half slices out there. I think the Z.One has highlighted what I like in a river runner. It’s fast, responsive, surfs like no other boat out there, carves really nicely, turns quickly, and inspires confidence in the way it handles waves, stoppers and eddy lines.
I really hope Pyranha can see the advantages of such a boat beyond the Ripper. For anybody out there who is looking for their first white water boat, just get a Z.One. And if you consider yourself an expert but previously turned your nose up at it, give it a go, you’ll have to eat your words, I guarantee it!
The Kayaking Journal 
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