Pyranha Ammo

Here's a review of the Pyranha Ammo from the boys in England. I think it's fairly impartial (although they talk up the play more than they should the creeking performance is where it's at - Check out the link to Todd and Ross on the video Ryan Scott put together from the little white - the link is on the bottom of this page), worth the read, and some great photos! Thanks John

I managed to get over to the artificial white water course in Nottingham yesterday, normal deal, a little lower than normal water level 20 Cummecs, normal bimble, but with a little more gradient and a little more retentiveness than usual! When on the flat the first things that strike you is the more than usual amount of rocker in the bow, and the lightning quick agility. The boat looks like it should paddle like a Creek boat, in reality it paddles more like a Seven-O. Running down the white stuff it does a very good job of staying on top of things even when the waters boily and undeceive its easy to stay on line. The rocker makes punching through and over stuff really quite easy, it also made rock splats / spins / wheels a piece of cake! Its not as fast as the Pyranha Burn around the river but this gives way around 30cm / 1ft in length to the Burn. I was still able to make all those hard to reach eddies and was even able to paddle back up to some of the play spots, after washing out. What it lacks in forward speed it more than makes up in agility. The hull tracks nicely and it give a really nice carve feeling when breaking in / out [see the photos, this thing really whips around when you drive it into an eddy].

The hull and rails are also really quite forgiving. You don’t have to hit everything perfectly, you don’t need to be concentrating on which edge to use, the boat kinda just gets on with it. Even In a hole you can briefly get away with leaning upstream with out power flipping. Even if you do get it wrong it’s balanced well for rolling, and didn’t even notice the rails too much. This boat goes big in a hole, it’s a bit of a handful, but when you get it right it goes big! The Pyranha Ammo is VERY retentive, the volume combined with the speed of the hull makes it sit in the trough of any hole / wave. This is great for retaining on shallower angled features. However in something steep with a substantial tow back [and walled in like the entry gate with 5ft of tow back] this proves, uh, interesting! However this does make it a looping machine – the peaked deck means keeping them straight is tricky but the volume certainly does ‘pop’, and then even if you completely stuff it up you can sit back and let the boat sucks you straight back into the hole.

The Pyranha Ammo does beg to be played with, but when it comes to it you just cant throw it around like a freestyle boat. Now I have been spoiled by having a fast aggressive play boats to paddle by comparison, surfing the Ammo appears to be hindered and it seams slow edge to edge. But then you are carrying all of this extra volume and you cant slash the tail through like you can on a play boat. In short if you want to go and pull freestyle moves all day – go and buy a Pyranha 4 20. If you want to go and run some gnarl - then go and get a Burn. If you want o go and totally rip it up all over the river - then the Pyranha Ammo is the boat for you…

The Pyranha Ammo on the Little White Salmon - Todd and Ross - Video by Ryan Scott AKA: "Great Scott"

Thanks for reading John