Waka Skuxx review

I’ve been spending a lot more time in the Waka Skuxx, so here are my thoughts now that I’ve more experience of it.

It’s amazing, buy one.

Okay, I’ve given the game away, but let me go more in depth. For reference I’m now 65kg, 5’8″ and I’m your average weekend boater who has the occasional beatering.

As readers of this blog will know, I demoed a Skuxx a couple of months ago, and liked it so much that I sold my Ripper 2 and another boat and bought one with the proceeds. But, demoing a boat once can’t tell you everything. Now that I’ve spent more time in the boat I can comment more. Most of this relates to me taking it on the upper Tryweryn, which for international readers is a fast class 3 – 3+ dam release river in North Wales. It’s not going to give the widest ranging view of the boats performance, but for this first review it’s what I’ve been using the boat on. I’ll update the blog with more thoughts once I’ve paddled it on a few other rivers. All that said, the upper Tryweryn does give a nice selection of ledges and drops to boof, as well as some chunky stoppers to go through or over, and some nice waves to surf, so it can give a good overview of how a boat performs.

It’s taken me a little while to dial in the outfitting, and I felt I needed some extra height so I added in some Jackson Sweet Cheeks I had lying around for a bit of a boost. I also needed to add more hip shims than were supplied with the stock boat. I still feel like my thighs need a bit more fit under the thigh braces, so my next task will be to add in some foam there to give more contact. Over all though, the boat is very comfortable, and I don’t suffer from any of the circulation issues I sometimes had with the Ripper 2. For reference, I left the seat at the factory default position after speaking to some other Skuxx users.

On the water

Just as with the demo boat I tried, the Skuxx feels very natural on the water. The word I used was “intuitive” and I still stand by that. It’s a very stable platform and amazingly forgiving of mistakes. Some boats let you know immediately when you’ve screwed up your edges. The Skuxx on the other hand, seems to let you know in slow motion and then just absorbs whatever is coming at it. There have been times when I’ve screwed up a move and ended up slamming into a big wave sideways, and the Skuxx just seems to carry through without missing a beat.

It’s not the fastest boat in terms of outright top end pace, but I find it quick to get up to its natural speed, and once there it seems to carry it quite well. It also seems to glide over eddy lines with good momentum, too. Paddling through the boils at the bottom of Ski Jump, as long as you keep a positive posture the Skuxx is pretty forgiving for a half slice.

When it comes to boofing, it’s quite easy to lift the nose up and over stuff. It responds quickly even if your technique isn’t totally dialled in. When you do get the technique bang on, it absolutely flies! If you miss your boof, it still seems to deal with slamming through a powerful hole very well. It will “wheelie” out if you don’t get things quite right, but for the most part it’s very predictable and the tail doesn’t seem to catch unless you really screw up your posture. On the one occasion when I screwed up my timing and drifted through the hole at the top of fingers, the tail sink was predictable and at no time did I feel I was going to end up in a bad place.

Ending up sideways in Chapel Falls during a rather drawn out boat chase, I was expecting to have to work my way out. But, the boat held very smoothly on edge and it exited pretty easily. Whether that was the nature of the feature or the defined rails of the boat, I don’t know. But I do know that I felt totally at ease with the boat in that position, which is a rarity for me these days!

One place you’re going to have a lot of fun with the Skuxx is on a wave. This thing surfs the bejesus out of everything! Small waves, big waves, in between waves. On small waves it still carves like crazy, and on more powerful features you can really feel those rails driving as you switch from edge to edge. Yet, despite the grippy rails, they actually release very easily as well.

Now, with regard to getting vertical on the tail, I’m not there yet. The Skuxx isn’t as easy as a Firecracker to get the tail down with, but it is still possible. It’s just my technique needs some refining, and perhaps practicing it somewhere else other than right above the upper Graveyard section might be better for me confidence wise!

Rolling the boat seems easy enough. I totally messed up my roll technique during one inadvertent wet moment, and despite feeling a bit awkward and seeming like I was going to run the aforementioned section on my face, the Skuxx still popped up despite my paddle being pretty much vertical. Waka’s do have a reputation for being a little more tricky than others to roll, but I don’t think that’s really the case in reality. Different boats require different timings and have a different feel. There’s nothing unduly untoward here, just practising to get to know it.

For kit stowage, there is a large space between the legs that can easily handle a small Pelicase, or a throwline and water bottle. It’s pretty easy to put things in the back, too, unlike the Ripper 2. In fact, storing safety kit for trips was one of the things that drove me nuts about the Ripper 2. The storage solution up front was woeful, and the tail was so narrow that it was hard to squeeze things past the backrest to put things in the stern easily.

Downsides?

Are there any things I don’t like about the Skuxx? Well, while the foot plate can be expanded horizontally, it doesn’t have a vertical adjustment, so a small gap exists at the top and bottom. Ordinarily this wouldn’t pose an issue, but if you’re going to take the boat off steep drops you might want to replace the foot plate with a custom made foam version that fills the bow in order to eliminate any foot entrapment risks.

Also, I’d like to see some hooker style thigh braces, much like the Bliss Stick boats, for easier connectivity on the thighs. Lastly, the Skuxx does feel quite heavy for its size when carrying it.

Conclusions

Okay, so this isn’t the most comprehensive review in the world, but so much of whether you should consider a particular kayak will come down to you actually trying it out. So, my views are entirely subjective based on my own experience of it. That said, I can say without a doubt that the Skuxx is one of the best kayaks I’ve ever had the pleasure of paddling. It’s clicked with me in a way that none of the Rippers did, or the Rexy.

Versus the other options out there, I’ve only paddled the Firecracker (medium and small versions). Other similar boats include the Liquid Logic Hot Whip, Antix 2.0, and the Spade Bliss. The Hot Whip looks like another amazing boat, although it is now limited in availability in the UK.

The Skuxx is designed so that it can be taken on Class V rivers if your skills are up to the task. It was originally designed as a tribute to the late Rob Eggleston as the ultimate Zambezi boat. It was designed to handle the big stuff, in other words. But it’s also a boat that’s as fun as hell on lower volume class 2 and 3 as well. Even small waves are made fun with it, and the way fast direction switches can be made suits me very well given how often I paddle playboats.

The Firecracker is another good boat, as is the Antix 2.0, but with those boats I’m at that awkward part of their weight range with respect to the different size variations. With the Skuxx, I’m right in the sweet spot. It just feels right in every way, and despite still being new to it, I’m finding that I’m dialled into it in a way that I would only usually expect from a boat that I’d been paddling for many years.

I’ll be doing a video with an on the water commentary, but in the meantime I’ve made a walkthrough video and a montage of some fun on the Tryweryn with it below.