hero Vs. Burn

[anthony]

I will buy one of these. I have demoed a hero (thanks chris) and now i have narrowed it down to a hero or a burn. I havent set in a burn yet, but i would love to demo one if someone has one i could check out. I plan on using it on creeks like bakers, tot falls, richland, falling water and beech. These are my spring time goals. Do you think these boats are to much or not enough for these creeks, and with one would you buy???

[ebell]

Anthony,

i don't have any good advice for you on the boat choice. i am also looking right now for more of a creeker than the Juice i have.

i hope to accompany you on the rivers you mentioned in the post. should be a good spring. pray for rain.

later
eric

[okieboater]

I have had a large Burn and now have a super hero.

Both are really good boats.

Both are good river runners and good for most creeks.

For me at least, the super hero wins out over the large burn, but a person would not go wrong with either boat.

I like the JK plastic a lot better than the Burn. JK scratches a lot more shallower and Burn got some deep ones pretty fast.

It took me a lot of work and I got a lot of help to dial in the outfitting on the large burn. It took several months and a lot of modifications on the Burn. I finally got it dialed in but it was not easy. This made an ok boat into a really good boat. If the outfitting does not work it is hard to control the boat. My first advice to a unhappy Burn owner is to get the outfitting right.

The Burn was a real pain in the Ars* for me to roll. And, I have a pretty good roll. I never had a decent roll till I got the outfitting really dialed in. My opinion, you got to have every thing fitting just right for a easy roll. After I got the outfitting right and learned to keep my head down and wait, Burn roll was pretty much automatic. I told the person who purchased my Burn all about the roll and he told me at first he felt the same way about the Burn's rolling. He made some adjustments, kept his head down longer and is happy with the Burn roll now. Seems to take a while for the Burn to get past the side when rolling.

Hero outfitting worked great from me right out of the box. And, it rolls like a dream.

the burn was described to me as a point and paddle kayak and it does that really well. I found it to be a bit skittish and if I did not watch the edges it was easy to catch an edge. Hero is stable and so far have not had a problem with catching an edge.

Burn was (and no particular reason here except it just felt better) a better river runner down the flats than the Burn. Burn seems faster to me than the hero.

Bottom line my opinion outfitting was done right and if plastic on the Burn did not gouge out so fast I would rank the Burn as the best boat if you mostly do river running and light creeking. I rank the Hero as the best if you do more creeking than river running. The only complaint so far on the hero was the JK water bottle just sucks to the max. It is a POS in my opinion. I fixed that with a modification that should be done at the factory. Sent JK a photo of the mod and never heard back from them. So much for wanting customer feedback I guess.

Both boats are good basic designs one just works better on some runs for me than others.

For my kind of boating I like the Hero better than the Burn. Others might switch and that is the good thing about kayaking IE lots of choices.

[ckuntz]

Hey Anthony, you might want to wait a little while until Jackson releases their new creeker the Villain. I sure this will be a sought after creeker when it comes out. Saw a couple of pictures of it on their website. If is anything like their other boats, then it will be a big success!
Chris K :)

[okieboater]

I gave the original large Burn a pretty hard review on outfitting. And, stand by that. Here are the major changes I made to my Burn which resulted in a much easier to roll and control boat. Tom Burroughs purchased my Large Burn and unless he has changed the outfitting, check his out. The Pyrana rep also advised me and recommended many of these changes. I do not know if newer models outfitting have changed as I had one of the first units out of the shipping container on the original large Burn.

First I ordered a large seat but it was way too tight on my over wide butt. Pyrana was good about sending me a new design seat and it made a world of difference.

Here are the mods that made major difference to my Burn.

The original hip pads that came with the boat never worked for me. I made some mods but none worked. Then a friend sent me a set of the older pyrana flat plastic hip thingies that goes on the straps. I glued on the amount of foam I needed for a good fit and added a little ridge up top. this made a big difference.

Next my knees would often fall out of the thigh / knee braces as I rolled.
The original factory braces had a problem with the screws not working and they fixed this with a new set of screws. But the real problem was the pads. I found that I could swap sides and put the original pads upside down so I had a surface to to glue to. I padded out the contact surface and put a holder foam strip maybe an inch or so square on the edge of the pads to the inside of the cockpit. This helped lock in my legs when needed but gave easy release when needed.

Then I put in some foam blocks on the bottom of the sides of the boat lined up with the proper position under the braces to help hold my legs up close to the knee braces. Do not get these too tight, play around with some duct tape to find the right position before you glue. You want the support there but want to not cut off circulation or make it hard to get your leg out.

These mods made a big time difference in rolling my Burn. I got a lot of help from the pyrana tech rep up in KC area. We made other mods as well but these were the key performance changers for me.

As always, this worked for me and you make the decision if you want to make the changes your self. When making any changes to the boat it is your responsibility to test the changes on dry land and on calm water with a backup until you are sure the changes allow you to exit the boat in a emergency situation.

I remember making some changes to my Big Foot squirt boat setup in my garage one day. I got in ok, got all the foam stabilization blocks in place but could not get out. Yelling for help got no response and my dog did not understand my pleas to go get my wife. Finally she came to the garage and got me unstuck. That made a big impression on me and I always do a check on any changes made to my boats that might hamper a wet exit.

I really liked my large Burn just like the Super Hero better for the type of paddling I do.

Hope this helps.

[shelbyjohnson]

I will buy one of these. I have demoed a hero (thanks chris) and now i have narrowed it down to a hero or a burn.

Just curious if you looked at the Karnali?

[ScottH]

My opinion

Burn – good speed, edgy, requires you “paddle” it to keep it under control. A lot of good boaters are great when paddling this boat. New paddlers can struggle with it. Even after a good bit of time in the boat it will sneak up on the boater and surprise them. I only recommend them to young, athletic, aggressive boaters. Or experienced, aggressive boaters. (Notice I did not say old)

Hero – speed is not bad at all but not as fast as the burn. Way more maneuverable. You can float along, and the boat will not do anything to surprise you or catch you off guard. You can get on the gas and make the sportiest of moves and the boat is right there with you. I have owned 15+ boats, this is in the top 2 of favorite boats.

Karnali – I have had limited time in it but would say it is best of both. Not as maneuverable but faster than the Hero. At least as fast but way more maneuverable and forgiving then the burn. If my Hero needed to be replaced (got stolen or something), I would look hard at the Karnali first. There is not enough difference for me to justify spending the money to change though.

Jackson Kayak Villain – TBD – Have read/heard rumors, not sure which direction they are going with this. Is it replacing the Rocker? Which is a different category then these other boats and I would not recommend a Full-on Creekboat for most folks here in Arkansas. Or replacing the Rocker AND the Hero? Plaining hull? Need to see specs, pics and Testdrive it.

[anthony]

I will buy one of these. I have demoed a hero (thanks chris) and now i have narrowed it down to a hero or a burn.

Just curious if you looked at the Karnali?[/qu


whoa, didnt know it exsisted.

[h20gasm]

Have'nt been on the board in a couple of days and was getting on to post about some creekers and WOW!! All my questions have been answered. I am leaning more toward the Diesel i like the Hero but as posted rarely see any for sale. Any suggestions on a Habitat?? As with Eric I'm looking forward to these creeks also.Thanks everyone for the great info.

Peace:H20GASM

[Renee H]

Scott had a Habitat only for a short period of time. I could be wrong, but guessing he wasn't very fond of it. I have a Hero and love it! Before that, I used a Wavesport Diesel as a creekboat. It was okay for the "little" creeks I ran, but it is lower volume than the Hero.

[ckuntz]

Great post with good information. I know this is opinion and individual experience, but what volumes are preferred by experienced river runner/creekers for most runs in Arkansas? 75, 80 gallons? or does this matter as much as design?
Chris K

[anthony]

Great post with good information. I know this is opinion and individual experience, but what volumes are preferred by experienced river runner/creekers for most runs in Arkansas? 75, 80 gallons? or does this matter as much as design?
Chris K

I would like that answer too.

Also, Should I be on the the light side or the heavy side of min/max wieght. In other words, I weigh 195, should i get the Med or Large burn (i decided to get the burn, seems like it would adhere to my ADD more than the hero will)

[shelbyjohnson]

Great post with good information. I know this is opinion and individual experience, but what volumes are preferred by experienced river runner/creekers for most runs in Arkansas? 75, 80 gallons? or does this matter as much as design?
Chris K

In my opinion design is way more important than 5 more gallons of volume. If you were looking at two boats that were close on volume you'd want the one with the design to match what you want to do.

Hang with me here as this may get a bit long but if you comprehend this may end up making sense.

Here's thoughts for consideration. When creek boats first started coming along paddlers were starting to push the gradient envelope going into the higher foot per mile range. The volume got a lot bigger quick but the internal design of foot braces and then full on bulk heads didn't come along for a bit longer. So some of the design logic was to put a lot of volume in to get the boat to rebound/lift to the surface quicker, shed the deck water quicker and return to stability quicker to lessen the likelihood of vertical pinning or hitting something under the surface after a steep drop. So paddlers would come up on a steep drop, scout it, evaluate and then generally run straight off, down, through the meat. There wasn't much thought about the angle of the dangle - just run off it. This was before paddlin' athletes started to learn how to compensate on tall drops by boofing to avoid holes, rocks, and change entry angle. By boofing you're greatly changing the angle of entry and lessening the risk. This shot of Greg Stacey running Suzie's Slot off the left side of Washing Machine on the Cossatot shows a good example of how his boat has just hit the rock at the top left of the slot to get a little lift and lessen the entry angle.


Greg's paddlin' a Dagger Nomad in the photo above and didn't get a drop of water in his eyes when he landed.

These days unless you are running sheer waterfalls you are likely to lessen your angle with techniques that a lot of people learn to use right off the bat. And to do boofs well it helps to have hull speed. A full on creeker like the old Dagger Freefall was high volume but really slow. It could be boofed but took work. A full on creeker that's really short high volume may be slow and doesn't boof as well.

So... a design like the Wavesport Diesel is a good example of a boat that has good volume, and hull speed and stability and with good technique can be easily boofed and the boat doesn't sub out. On top of these considerations the bulkhead and foot designs progressed really nicely and so now we have fully supported platforms, with even some having internal suspensions. Whereas on older design we had yakima foot pegs for the ball of your foot. (I have a story I can tell sometime about coming face to face with my toe looking at me.) So with these new full floored bulkheads you can have more of an all-round boat with better internals that can take a hit, rebound and be somewhat safe.

Okay sorry for the novel. If you read a lot on whitewater boat designs there's competing interests of volume, stability and hull speed. You have portions of all but not too much of any single one as it trade's off for something else. Too much stability makes boat wide and too slow, speed is increased by making boat longer/narrower but sacrifices stability and volume, too much volume makes for quick surfacing safety but the boat is slow and too hard to plane out or boof.

Look for the design that matches the best of those three in your mind and then buy it and paddle all the time. Any flaw in the design - you as the athlete will compensate for because you've spent hours and hours in the boat learning what it can do.

BTW - I bet many an old boater on here will agree with me that the best all around boat has yet to be designed.

[ckuntz]

Thanks for the detailed answer. Lots of great information to take in. The best technology and knowledge doesn't compete with experience. Sure am looking forward to spring!
Chris K :)

[okieboater]

I agree with Shelby. I surely have not found one kayak that does it all. Super Hero may come close but some runs just work better for me, in my RPM Max or Mega Rocker or even my Response.

and, I personally do not think it ever will be just one kayak that does it all well.

Here is why.

Most people who do the gnar creeks want some volume, raised decks, some length (speed, bridge holes etc) and the type of things Shelby wrote about on boofs etc.

Most people who do the current amazing moves play boats want something short, flat bottomed and lower decks with sharp ends.

Those in between who like to run rivers and get in some play along the way normally fall in between the two I mention above.

I think a good river runner is going to be all most of us need for most runs. But not all.

I could go on for instance what about self support on the more difficult WW multi day runs like Selway? Or multiday runs on coastal waters like the Maine Water Trail or those runs down in south FL.

Or those folks doing a lot of fishing out of the new kayaks with all sorts of rod holders, bait boxes and gear stowage.

Or those squirt boaters who do all sorts of weird but amazing moves.

Like I said it is either 7 or 8 kayaks that I have collected over the years and each one of them does a task really well. If I had more space, I probably would have saved a couple more designs.

Then you get into the rafts and canoe needs.

Man, I love this sport!!!!!!

Do your part to help the sport and economy and buy more water craft!!!