El Jefe inital impressions

[tk]

A couple of you asked for me post after I paddled my Jefe last weekend on the Embudo and Santa Cruz. I'm 5'10 160 lbs, other boats I've paddled, Huck, Gus, Huka (previous creek boat) Diesel 65 (just 1 run) and a Micro. I really liked my Huka on tight technical drops, it is super turney and the bow re-surfaces quite quickly. I liked boats like the Gus and Diesel on pushy water because of how well they tracked.

So what I was looking for in this boat was a bow that re-surfaced just as fast as the Huka, but with a little better tracking in pushier water, kind of a Gus/Huka combo. The Jefe is exactly that IMO. For me I found that it took just a little more work to turn coming from lots of time in the Huka, but it took a lot less work to keep on line. What surprised me was how the boat resurfaced as fast or faster than the Huka and was way faster compared to boats like the Diesel, Micro, or even a Huck. Looking at it side by side next to friends boats, I would say the Jefe definitely has some attributes of Gus, Huka (the bow), and a little bit of the Nomad 8.5. The Nomad 8.5 has way more volume in the stern and less volume and rocker in the bow, but otherwise are very similar in length and width. Everyone looks for different things in a creek boat, but so far the Jefe fills the gap for exactly what I was looking for in a creek boat.