Independent Kayak Review: Pyranha Ammo

Tag : Hole Punch Tool

The Ammo , Pyranha’s current ‘all-around river runner’offering, is a fun mix of shortened river-runner and surfablehull&chines. It sports the high volume one would expect in acreeker, but is significantly shorter.

At first visual inspection, the Ammo looked to me like the designfolks tried to mate up the side-to-side profile of the burn withlines vaguely reminiscent of the venerable Attak. Whetherit’s a pumped-up, modernized Attak with good outfitting, or asawed-off burn, the Ammo is a driver’s boat- nimble, fun, andcorky… But it’s neither of the aforementioned boats -The Ammo is its own thing.
After looking at the boat for 5 seconds, I determined thatit’s testing grounds would be on something creeky - it lookslike a shortened version of a creeker, and from the look of it, itwill excel in low-volume, tight-quarters technical waters…grand, then, that I took it out on something pushy, with highvolume and munchy holes, just to round out the review process.

For my review sample, I paddled the Medium. I’m6’1” and tip the scales at 190lbs without gear- meaningI’m near the high end of the recommended weight range for theboat when all my gear is included (note that the recommended loadrange figures include gear). I mostly took it on pushy, high-volumeclass V.
On the water, the Ammo is comfortable, laterally stable, andnimble, albeit slow in a straight line compared to its longerbrethren. Its shortened waterline and large central volume make itcorky and easy to boss around, but by the same token, the highsidewalls and volume make it easy for the river to boss it (andyou) around, too. The result is a boat that rewards active driving,and because it’s so nimble, it calls for a degree of subtletyas well.

Pyranha’s marketing spiel is that this would be yourall-around boat; good for play, running rivers… andthey’re right- but there’s a dark side to this outlook,too. Yes, it’ll surf and spin and carve, and there is enoughvolume to float you and a bit of gear… but this is not aplayboat by any means and its hauling capacity is pretty limited.As with any boat its length, adding much weight into the stern (theonly space available for storage) will impact the way it trims out,so pack light. This is a river runner with the right lineage to dowell on the steeps, and the right hull to spin and carve, but forvertical play? 64 gallons in a 7’2” boat is a lot ofvolume to play with- I found the ends decidedly buoyant. The Ammois a compromise of many things, meaning it’s not optimal foreverything, but it’s a rather good compromise. You really cantake this boat anywhere, just don’t expect to throw down withthe playboaters in their destination boats, and realize thatrunning this boat down the steep-n-nasty will require extraattention.

The rocker profile for the Ammo features a longish‘flat’ hull section, with steeply progressivetransition rocker toward the ends. This means as you activate thatrocker at the ends, the resistance you get from the transition atthe end of the rail falls off rapidly as you shift your weightacross the transition. The result is that if you get your weighttoo far out to the end, it’s pretty easy to mush a carve,plug that hole, or find yourself on your stern, staring at the sky.You have so much influence over the orientation of this boat thatyou’ll discover how easy it is to over-muscle things.
Of course, that same quality makes the Ammo easy to boof. The shortrocker-transition (and short overall length) gives you a lot ofcontrol over the boat, but with that control comes a certainresponsibility for your actions. Where longer boats with smootherrocker transitions provide an ‘automatic’ leverageagainst your center of gravity to moderate your worst impulses, theAmmo is decidedly manual.

I found this to mean that if I got the boat flat on boofs, thelandings were solid and I’d skip away across the surface ofthe water with speed- but if I relied on the transition rocker atthe bow to do my deflection for me, speed would suffer- because ofthe blunt transition rocker, the line between deflecting along thesurface and plugging underwater is a fine one.

In pushy water, I found the Ammo easy to orient, but challenging tobuild and carry speed with. Getting used to the feel of the shorterrails helped with this significantly- as does the practice ofactively driving the boat. Quick to accelerate but with low topspeed, quick to plane up but with a short carving rail, I found itgreat for playing off of whatever feature I had handy- surf thelateral to make that cross-current move, for example, became agreat game- but turning a carve into lateral speed required somefinesse- with a carving rail this short, it’s easier than onemight think to set an angle of attack that will stall. Fortunately,the Ammo is quick to square up to anything, and adroitly stays ontop of the water.

…of course, that’s a kind way of saying that this boatis retentive. Short, round in most aspects, with high volume, itsbob-rate is so high that it’ll resurface very quickly- yep, asure recipe for sticking in holes. It’s short enough thatit’s a hole-tumbler, and voluminous enough to give you a lotof pop and bounce while you’re there… but the volumeis distributed all the way to the ends, which means most of yourslice-and-reorient-in-the-hole moves will require a lot of power.…simply put, if you’re getting cartwheels in thisboat, it’s because you’re somewhere that’d makemost strong men cry like sissies. Don’t ask how I found thatout. Outfitting
If you’ve sat in any modern Pyranha boat, you’veexperienced the butt-hugging goodness of their outfitting, whichseems to become incrementally better every season. This version isno different, in this sense- it is the expected evolution of prioroutfitting, something Pyranha seems to have down in spades. Thebackband connects to ratchet-bands in the thigh hooks, thefoot-bulkhead provides solid footing, and I was able to set up thisboat for my use without any tools. Additionally, the boat comeswith a generous bag of foam for outfitting.

The cockpit is generous. I have a 32” inseam and size 9 feet,and I wore shoes (not slippers or booties) during the review, andhad several notches to give in the footwell.
I found that by shortening the backband and moving forward in theboat, handling improved and my ability to punch through oncomingfeatures improved significantly.