Reposted from the Dagger blog, written by Tyler Bradt
On our Dream Result Europe tour I saw the Axiom for my first time. My initial response was, wow, that looks like a great boat for my father. My dad just had his 70th birthday and is still shredding it in a kayak but his Juice had become to edgy and his old creek boat too hard to roll. I decided to get an Axiom for the both of us for his 70th birthday present just before we went on the Grand Canyon. He was STOKED, but I had no idea how stoked I was about to be on it too...
The hull speed, comfort, and stability makes the Axiom the perfect boat for my pops. He can surf, run whitewater, roll, and sit in comfort the entire time. The true trial of this is the Grand Canyon which is mostly flat water, with some sweet surf waves, and big water thrown into the mix. He styled it entire way...
I was able to pry it away from my pops a couple times too and was completely blown away. This is one of the most fun boats I have ever paddled. It surfs like a dream, in fact, I have had the most fun surfs of my life in this boat because the hull speed allows for surfing fast, hard to catch waves that would be impossible in a traditional play boat.
I also hiked it up some creeks along the river to check out its river running potential...
Then played in the pool at the bottom...
Upon returning from the Grand Canyon we found high water in Montana. With in days of the Grand Canyon trip, I self supported the Selway at high flows, where I surfed some of the most epic waves of my life in this boat. It almost made it worth getting busted by the rangers at the bottom for paddling it without a permit...
Then had an epic surf session on pipeline when no one else could even get on the wave.
I may not be going to compete in the world championships of freestyle in this boat, but the Axiom is my new favorite playboat. I have never paddled anything so versatile and so fun. Now if I could just get my pops to quit paddling it so I could...