About the reviewer

Have been paddling up to Scottish grade 4 rivers.

Test environment

pretty high water in river Findhorn, going down grade 4 rapids.

Review

The sniper holds up nice bouncing over waves nicely instead of punching through them. Thats due to the high volume and the stubby front. The sniper is a fairly short creek boat. Due to that it is a bit twitch at ties especially going through bigger stoppers. The right paddle stroke is quite essential when going through them or otherwise you might just tun on the spot. Your roll would have to be quite slow as the flattish hull. You can almost feel how the kayak pops into place at the last stage of a roll.

Conclusion

Very good creeker with a playful edge to it. The hatch is a great idea. I can easily put all the bits and bobs in there and never to worry that some of these will float down the river accidentally. The only thing i found is that the hatch leaks somewhere so I need to put some dry bags into the bulkhead so that the kayak doesn't sink.

I tested the sniper on a low volume creek which is what it was designed for. It handled perfectly. It's the easiest boat to roll which is good if you don't want to go over a fall upside down. It boofed easily and resurfaced faster than I had thought a low volume boat would. All around it is a great low volume creeker with surprising speed, but I anticipate it will get pushed around on some high volume rivers.