Alpenglow Is the premier paddle sports shop serving Boise, and all of Idaho with the best sales, service, and demos of rafts, kayaks, technical clothing and footwear.
I had my first opportunity to check out the brand new Hobie Tandem Adventure Island last Sunday with My family. The Hobie Tech Rep. Walt had just picked up his demo from the factory in Oceanside California and drove through Boise en-route home. We were the first in the state to try it out! And what great conditions we had. Lake Lowell by the wildlife preserve offered us consistent 12-15 knot winds that made sailing a huge amount of fun!
My first ride was with my daughter Lauren, who had always ridden in the stern of the single Island or on the tramp. You can definitely feel the drag of the extra weight even with a kid on the single; but with the Tandem, the boat glided beautifully. Tacking was easy and when we got broadside to the wind, you really felt the magic that the boat offers. When we went back to shore and picked up my daughter's friend, we were still not dragging even though Lauren rode on the tramp.
It is super easy to use. In fact, I had my daughter do the sailing from the back cockpit. Both cockpit s have full rudder and mainline controls. The boat comes with Turbofins instead of the standard fins so getting off shore is a simple procedure.
I can't waith to get our demo, rental in so I can get it back out!
Mike gave a great review of the large Villain loaded on a multi-day South Fork Salmon trip in Idaho. Check it out. Paddles great with or without extra gear!
Villain Review by Mike Moser
I was able to take the Villain down the SF Salmon for a multi-day trip this last weekend. In my original plans, I was always going to take the Super Hero, my current creek boat. Chuck Cremer called me up and told me that he got the large version in and I should come by and take a look. I stopped byAlpenglow on my way home from work the next day and got very excited about how it looked. I was anxious to try it out on the water, so I called him up and asked if I could take it out that weekend for my multi-day. He was kind enough to say yes.
First let me say that this boat has a ton of room in the back for all my gear. Usually I like to pack my weight all around me and I was actually able to fit a couple more dry bags right behind my seat than I usually can. My float/dry bags that I put into the stern of the boat fit in really easy without any hard pushing. There was plenty of room up front too, but you have to either unscrew the foot pegs or put small enough items in around them. Someone told me that Jackson had put a different type of foot pegs in the Mega Rocker which enables you to flip them up to put items in. I wish they had those in this boat. As much as I wish they had those, it still wasn’t too bad.
When first starting out with this boat, I felt a bit shaky. I was used to the flat hull like the Super Hero has and not a semi-displacement. I was also concerned a bit about how long the nose was. Once I started paddling it down some of the first rapids, the shakiness and the concern for the long nose quickly disappeared. The tracking on this boat is amazing, I would point it where I wanted it to go and it would go there without much need to paddle. It crossed lines with authority and gave me confidence that I had wished that the Super Hero had given me.
This boat was super fast at making moves. There were multiple times where I was above a huge hole and easily made the move around it at the last minute. When I did have to run them, the boat was able to fly through them without much effort. I found that it somewhat auto-boofed across the holes when I wasn’t trying.
On the paddle out on the Main Salmon, I was able to catch quite a few big, green waves. The thing caught waves that I thought for sure that I was going to miss. It was so fast that I found it accelerating down the waves. The boat handles well too. It was easy to surf it from edge to edge and stay on a good wave for a long time.
The other thing I liked about this boat was the secondary stability. I found that I could put it almost completely on its side and not have to brace at all. That helped me too when I was shaky in the beginning, because I didn’t know how to use the boat in then and it helped to keep me upright. Speaking of upright, I didn’t roll the whole trip, so I finally gave it a try down on the Main Salmon. It rolled like my old Huka, which rolls extremely easy.
Overall, this boat impressed me. I am still going to give it another demo on the Upper and Middle of the North Fork Payette to see how it handles up there, but I think it will do better than I could ever expect. I am extremely stoked about this boat and look forward to paddling it again soon.
