The CR (Cross River) Series is a river running playboat built from the ground up.
Each part of the boat was designed for a specific type of paddling, rather than just taking an existing playboat design and softening the edges. That is what makes the Cross River a different boat all together. We talked to paddlers and dealers from all over about the characteristics that this boat should have to make it the perfect boat for the category and the list went something like this.
1. Comfortable- That is pretty self explanatory. People overwhelmingly said they were tired of cramming themselves into tiny playboats. They wanted something they could sit in all day and not be crippled at the end of the river. So what we did is added extra knee room, and gave it big footbumps so space wasn't an issue. We also came up with another simple outfitting idea. We lined the whole foot area with a layer of foam. Its called the "Cone of Comfort", because you have to give everything a stupid name. The cool part about the cone is that it covers the outside of your foot and you can still use your LL footbag, or your foam bulkhead inside the cone. We also reworked our hip pads so that they are screwed to the seat and are completely adjustable up, down, forward, back, in, out, and on angle. So that your can dial in just the right hip pad placement without having to rip them out and start over. All our boats except the Huck and Gus will come with the adjustable hip pads and all boats that DO NOT have a bulkhead will come with the cone of comfort and foot foam. There may be an option for you to pick which foot system you want. The Footbag, or the Foot Foam system.
2. Easy to Use- That meant different things to different people.
Folks wanted a boat that would help them get downstream rather than hinder it. They also looked for it to be an easy rolling boat. By using the spin disk I am able to get a looser boat in a narrower flat surface. Therefore I can get more secondary stability with a 25 or 26 inch wide boat, rather than adding another inch like some of the other boat designs. Hint measure the boats yourself. That also gives the sidewall of the boat a nice shape for rolling easily.
3. Still Rip in All types of Features- That is also fairly obvious.
The boat is being designed to; rip around on a wave, be loose, blunt, clean spin, whatever you want. It is also a very balanced cartwheelling boat, that will loop huge because of the extra volume to keep you on the surface when you are paddling downstream. And from Woody who has been out paddling this boat all summer the thing that he was really excited about was how well it stern squirted. A little old school is good for everyones soul.
It's the type of boat that enjoys every part of the river!