2010 Jackson Star - Is it worthy of the hype?

There has been plenty of hype about the New Star series when it first came out - videos of the Jackson paddlers going huge, lots of talk of 'this is the best boat ever' etc. etc. It's shorter, it must be better (though that didn't quite work for the Dagger FX!) Team paddlers were raving about it and so were the Jackson 'faithfuls' (i.e those that aren't sponsored but will always only paddle Jackson boats, those that will buy the new boat without even trying it and therefore have to rave about it anyway to show they have made the right choice - regardless of whether it is actually better than their last boat!).

Anyway, although I found the videos fairly convincing and you can not ignore the number of Jackson paddlers that medalled in Thun, I am pretty sure the top guys could get huge air and big moves if they were paddling a bath tub - I didn't trust the hype and wanted to try the boat for myself.

For the last 18 months I have been an 'independent' paddler, I am not faithful to any one boat manufacturer, proven by the fact that I have been regularly swapping between both a Wavesport Project - bought and paid for by myself, and a Jackson Star - kindly provided by my local kayak shop Marsport. I loved the Star in holes as it was so easy to throw around, balanced on end and great at looping, but I didn't like it so much on a wave as I couldn't get used to really having to dig the rails in for it to release to get any verticality. I have therefore been using the Project on a wave as I love the bounce and I can be lazy with the rails but still get big air!!

I demoed the new star in the holes at HPP and on the surf and have recently been paddling one (courtesy of Marsport) at Bremgarten (fast, flushy wave) and Thun (a non-steep wave, no shoulders). I know absolutely nothing about boat design, and can't comment on what exactly makes things good/bad, but below are a few of my thoughts as to how I found it performed.

General: This boat is short and ugly, but extremely light-weight! It is wider than the old star, and small people may therefore find it harder to throw around. I know several paddlers have had to put extra foam on the seat to enable them to get 'over the top' of the knee bumps.

Colours - after the '90s horrendous multi-colours by various boat manufactures (although Dagger in particular) I believe there was a reason why we moved to solid colours. 'nuff said, though each to their own - some may like the 'blended frog' look of the blue/green/red mix, or the French flagged red/white/blue, or maybe red/white/blue - at least there is a choice.
Martina Wegman paddling a good 'ol solid green-coloured '10 Star Thun

Outfitting - It looks to be the same as in the old boats. Happy feet - like marmite you either love it (them?), or hate it (them?) (although, actually - like marmite - I find I can put up with it at times)- I always put foam behind the happy feet so I don't need to use the pumpy up system, which I find to be too weird and wobbly. I find it quite concerning how much the plastic flexes when the foot bags are pumped up - doesn't fill me with confidence in how thick the plastic is!

One tip for those trying a demo - ensure you check the seat position! It makes a huge difference to the performance, generally the boats come in with the seat thumb screws & jubilee clip being loose, so as soon as it is paddled the seat moves to a far back position which greatly affects how it paddles, particularly in cartwheel moves. A flathead screwdriver and strong fingers will make it secure.

Boat finish - seems to be Teflon coated! Straight out from the wrapper and the surface is super slippery - my stickers wouldn't stay on! My hand also slipped off when I was getting out of the boat onto some rocks - be careful! Makes it nice and slippery on the wave though, I'm sure :)

Hole moves: In a hole it certainly had the pop and the loops were big, both front and back and it was easy to move around (sometimes a bit too quick though) for other moves.

The biggest difference between the new and old star is in the 'slicey' moves e.g cartwheels/splitwheels/tricky whus etc - due to the lack of length and the 'pop' in the boat it feels like it wants to pop out every time an end is initiated, this is not necessarily a bad thing and is certainly useful for air on moves, but it does mean it lacks the 'smoothness' of the old star in cartwheel-based moves.

This boat has obviously been designed with competition in mind (unsurprisingly given that a 4-times world freestyle champion was behind it) - cartwheels are not worth a lot of points any more, so it is not necessary to paddle a boat that does them easily (except I quite like cartwheeling - it's taken me 10 years to perfect it, I don't want to give it up just yet!!). Cartwheels are certainly still possible, they are just a lot more 'poppy'; harder to push through the fat front end and the back end (which does not seem to exist) can come through too quickly, so it is not so easy to control as in the previous Star. If cartwheeling is your thing, or you only paddle in pour-overs then you're not going to like it. But, in a decent hole, or if the majority of your moves are loop-based you'll love the 'pop'!

EJ - boat designer, getting vertical at Thun

On a wave: There was much hype about how fast this boat is, despite its short length. I don't see fast as always being good though, the old boat was fast, so was the Dagger Crazy '88 and that didn't make me enjoy it more than the slower Project (or even Kingpin). On Hurley I find a fast boat to be too hard to get blunts - as with such a small space for manoeuvering I am down the bottom of the wave before I've even thought of putting an edge on! So, I was interested to see how this boat would perform on a wave - particularly as I had to make the choice of whether to paddle one at the Worlds or not.

Emily Jackson, World Champion, back-blunting.

On Bremgarten (fast wave, good shoulders) the boat was awesome - it was easier to control than the Project as it didn't bounce around so much, it went just where I pointed it! It was smooth on the wave, but it still released really easily (easier than the old star) and was easy to get vertical. Blunts seemed really fast and effortless and clean blunts felt easy. Jumping straight back into my Project afterwards felt sluggish and hard work.

On the slower wave (Thun) the speed of the boat was a definite advantage as the wave wasn't giving any speed or bounce at all (although the bounce of the Project was still good). Like the old Star, it was necessary to put a hard edge on the boat to get any response, but once done it did seem to release easily and seemed to go more vertical than the old boat (no, I didn't get the protractor out :)) -bizarrely though, a lot of the time when I was getting blunts (seen later on video) it felt like I was roundhousing. It did seem to be more retentive than the Project - this could be due to the fact the moves were being completed faster.

My conclusion - whilst I shall remain an 'independent' paddler I'm refining my boat collection and selling the Project. I'm looking forward to paddling the new Star at Hurley this winter. Big loops without hitting the bottom are going to be great and I'm hoping for some 3-gate sessions to get in some fast wave moves.