Long term review (1 year of ownership)

I've now been paddling the Antix for a little over a year. It's been the boat I paddled the most, to the point I'd say I paddle it about 85% of the time I go out. I've paddled it on class 4, I've taken it over waterfalls, I've taken it on approaching flood stage rivers and I've done nearly all of my casual paddling in it. Often when I am getting on new water, I'll debate whether to take the Antix or not. My creek boat is never a guaranteed improvement over the Antix, as the Antix boofs amazingly well and has such exceptional manuevability.

Here's my overall thoughts after a year of ownership.

Long Term Positives:

  1. Being able to get vertical all over the place makes this boat a BLAST.
  2. The notable amount of rocker keeps the tail out of the water in MOST situations. You can still get bit however.
  3. Ultra agile. Being able to drop the tail for pivot turns make this boat a breeze to manuever quickly
  4. Boofs great, so much fun to get over stuff.
  5. Ultra stable
  6. Surfs great, and is the best fit for nearly all the surf features I find around me here in the PNW.
  7. Quite comfortable

Long Term Negatives:

  1. Jackson would do well to do something about their plastic. My boat is beat to heck and oil canned like no ones business.
  2. It is a slow boat. The few naysayers who don't paddle it complain about that the most. That said they also tend to be people who can't squirt anything even a playboat, so they can't appreciate the positives.
  3. The new backband system they introduced slightly before this is not nearly as easy to snug up, nor to adjust the backband height. I would hope they put some R&D into improving this system further as I feel it's a step back in more categories than it was a step forward.

Some pictures from this past winter of shredding the boat up in the wild: