Teksport Rock Hopper Kayak

First the negatives:

Skeg cable is rubbish.

Exceedingly heavy for size.

Rear compartment is awkward shaped due to skeg box, but good space if you use lots of small bags. Used it for Camping with a big lomo deck bag on top of the back hatch.

Now the Good stuff:

Virtually indestructible (see exceedingly heavy) 13 years in & going strong.

Very manouverable - great going sideways, backwards, turning.

Quick for a short boat - much faster than an Approach, Fusion, or XP10.

Comfortable for me for long paddles.

Very stable.

It's my 2nd favourite boat after my ancient Carolina 16. Ahead of my Manitou, Sealion, Sierra, Northstar (even heavier), XP10, Jeffe, & Jensen.

It reacts beautifully to the slightest movement of your paddle, but will turn quickly if you are not concentrating. If we've got beginners out at the club, it is always this boat for me as you can spin it & accelerate towards an issue way before the long boats have finished turning.

Dissapointed !

Would I buy another one - no probably not.

I must have had either the concept boat which never went into production or a Friday boat after the Pub.

Teksport, if you read this then I would be please to accept a newer model in replacement of my Duff boat

I brought it about 5 years ago and have not used it for the last 3 years.

Why ?

I brought the Rock Hopper when it first came out as a beginner Paddler to develop my skills on the sea. Having used it about 10 times and had some tuition, I soon learned that it was poorly designed for the purpose because of the following reasons:-

1]

I was dissapointed with the lack of space in the rear Compartment as the skegg housing intrudes too much into the back hatch area to give access to any normal day trip canoeing gear that you want to carry with you out on a trip ie lunch, safety bag, dry bag etc without damaging the skegg lowering cable. There is not even enough space to put in a lunch box and a dry bag.

2] Talking of the Cable,

Despite oiling and regular maintenace as recommended by the manufacturer I soon found that the skeg cable beczme stiff .

If you are out on a trip with friends, the cable tends to pick up sand and it gets jammed. If you are out to sea and try to drop the skegg to offset side drift, and it jams, then you will struggle. Other than doing an eskimo rescues or hip flips off the front of other craft, whilst someone prises the skegg out, you end up trying to force the thin under capacity cable which bends and buckles and then you end up with a skegg that does will not work -- Teksport improve the cable size and increase the number of strands to make it stronger.

3]

the front Bulkhead that is a blow moulded cockpit shaped large bottle with a plastic push fit plug to seal the blow hole leaked and fills with water and then becomes a liability. as it is not an easy jo to remove it to empty it out.

In the first winter off the wsater, I had to remove it and fill it with expanding foam to keep the water out.

4]

The rear bulkehead is a moulded disk siliconed in and has no give in it, so when the boat works and gives, the Silicone joints come apart and leak. hence no water tight compartment. I am looking at finding a solution by obtaining some closed cell 2" foam and finding some way of replacing it with that.

5]

It needs padding on the seat as to roll it is impossible without slidding around. I put foam on the seat, drilled and used car side panal plugs to retain the foam in, The idea was taken from a pyranah seat.

6]

The Thigh Braces are rubber and poorly designed with very little anchor in the rubber so the retainnig bolts pull out under loading of Rolling etc, and once ripped are useless. I notice Teksport sell new thigh braces, obviously this is just a design flaw which they can make money out of.