[Alowishious]

Hi everyone, Chris here. Touch of background.

Live in the Atlanta area, run the Cartecay and hooch. Nothing serious, just having fun playing. I am more of a play boat guy not much of a huge water guy... yet My previous boats were a dagger RPM, Centifuge, and a Ultrafuge.

So I got out of kayaking about 6 years ago due to having kids and spending time with them (too young to go themselves) but!
They are not too young now!

Ages 8,8,10,11 Three girls, youngest is my boy. All average size for kids there ages, all extremly good swimmers with good heads on their shoulders (most the time). Wife is 5'5" average weight.

I am looking for boat recomendations for all of them.
Paddles I am good, I love my werner paddles
No more Harmony LC1 skirts, so need recomendations on those too!
PFD's and Head protection I can take care of too, we all know those are really personal choices depnding on fitment and the such.

I like dagger boats (never let me down, so why change) so would like to stay with them if I can.

Also need a boat for me. Thinking something similar to my old centifuge, not as radical as my ultra.

Anyways, Hi to all, anyone in North Georgia ever want to go hit the river let me know!
Chris

 

[Alowishious]

Oh and don't worry. All 6 of us are going to basic Kayak class again to learn/relearn the basics of safety and roll technique.

 

[glenn]

Jackson has a full line of kid sized kayaks and they are a pretty cool company. I think Pyrhana has a kids boat too, but it's not as modern a design.

The dagger axiom seems to be most like the boats you are used to in the Dagger line.

All that being said, if you really want to play boat, then you should at least look around a little bit. All the full play boat designs are much shorter than what you are familiar with, and much more capable of doing tricks. A good place to start is again Jackson. Wavesport is coming out with their new boat in Jan and the old projects I'm thinking will get much cheaper starting next spring.

 

[Max's Dad]

My daughter, when she was 12, and Max, when he was 9, started out in a Dagger Dynamo. This is a great kid's boat to start out in, but hard to find as it seems like Dagger has not marketed the boat in the US since 2002 or so. You can still buy it on the other side of the pond. Max is now almost 14, a bit small for his age, but he used the Dynamo this season when competing in Boater-X and playing kayak polo.

As Glenn pointed out, the Dagger Axiom seems to be in the mold of the RPM and Dynamo. Not sure if the smallest Axiom is small enough for young kids.

The Rebel is Pyranaha kid's boat. Max demoed the Rebel earlier this year just for kicks and he thought it was similar his Dynamo. Here is a link to the video of his session on Clear Creek in Golden, CO. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI2aR9Wa64s

Jackson has kid sized boats for river running (Sidekick), river running playboat (Fun 1 and Fun 1.5) and freestyle (Shooting Star). Max competes in freestyle using a Shooting Star and he loves that boat.

Another option for a kids boat would be the Wavesport Fuse 35. Is a river running playboat and a used Fuse 35 can be had for a song. This was the boat that Max used when he first got into freestyle. He really like the boat, but since it is not a true freestyle boat it was not competitive with the Shooting Star. So we ended up selling the boat, the Harmony kid's skirt made for the Fuse, and a paddle for $300. I wish that kind of deal was available when my kids got into kayaking.

Liquid Logic Remix 47 is a true river runner and according to some very accomplished paddlers this is a great kid's boat. My daughter had her first combat roll in this boat when she demoed it.