The RiverVibe Review: 2012-09-30

I think I have a problem.... This low water year in Colorado has inspired me to get yet another kayak

Early this spring I got my hands on a shiny new Pyranha Shiva creeker and have absolutely loved dialing it in, but the rocks have been so high this year that I've been very troubled by how much nice new plastic I've had to leave behind. So I got it into my head to find an old creek or downriver boat that was long and old-school and made the winter Numbers and Pine Creek a little more challenging. Well, last week I found it! The Dagger Crossfire is a 1991 design, 11 feet long, 66 gallons, and a radical design in its day.

In the past week I've only been able to get it into the water once in the Salida town river park. I can tell already that this boat is stable and accelerates like a dream. If it was a little bit more rockered and had little higher deck, it would be a fantastic creek racer. This week provided a beautiful evening with kids and dogs playing in the water and trees in the height of their Fall turning.

I feel as though I really lucked out with the condition that this boat is still in, even the outfitting was in great shape. That said, it did need a little work... screws needed tightening, hip-pads needed installing, and a backrest needed to be created. It was the backrest that needed the most work and turned into quite the little artistic system made out of minicell foam! I had wanted to keep whatever I came up with to be generally in keeping with the period of the kayak and I looked to the old Perception foam block for inspiration.

Backrest System

Here's what I came up with:

What I'm really happy with is that it is adjustable. The wedge (resting between the stern center column and the backrest block) can be positioned up or down, thus moving the whole block forward or back. Holding it all together is a simple strap of flat webbing and a buckle. The webbing runs from one gear loop that is part of the outfitting forward though the block by a slit, across the front of the block to the other side, back through another slit, back through the other gear loop and back over the top of the wedge to buckle back on itself. The angles that the webbing makes across these interlocking pieces of foam hold them both equally down and back against the stern column.... so... if the backrest block is positioned forward or back, the tension on the webbing will always equalize, thus holding the whole thing at the desired setting. It might sound confusing, but a picture is worth a thousand words....