Paddled the Octane today and fell in love.
This is a plastic surfski, 17' 8" long and 20.9" wide. Marginally better specs than the Epic V7.
Very stable for a ski and the amount of adjustment in the footrest is impressive. I'm 6'1" and I could push the peddles out further. It has a hatch in front of the foot peddles and another hatch on the deck behind the rear bulkhead thus allowing for ample storage. This boat offers the choice of overstern or understern rudders, and I have to say, the overstern rudder makes this boat a river running beast.
I was very comfortable in it the first time out and the boat offered more stability than I expected. That said, this is still a very tippy craft for the average paddler. I found it to be more stable than my Cobra Viper and roughly comparable to the Thunderbolt-X in terms of stability. Much more stable than most other surf skis.
I was able to get her up to 7.0mph my first time out with her on a calm lake with a wing paddle so she most assuredly has more speed in her that can be tapped even though she already showed impressive speed for a large piece of rotomoulded plastic.
I think she's my new river marathon boat.
