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So before I begin let me qualify this... This is the first time in well ever that I have used a low angle paddle. The Accent Lanai, the low angle version of the accent Kuauai. My impression, damn this thing is light... lighter than the Kuauai. It features the same king pin connection that the Kuauai has and the same ability to feather it for 0 degrees to 60 degrees in 15 degree increments. I found that my nominal 60 degree feather was wrong for me when switching to low angle. 15 degree was more like it. though to be fair I could have probably done 0 had my low angle stroke been better. I kept trying to use it just like muscle memory tells me to high angle. If I concentrated I could keep thing going as expected but this was a fault of me rather than the paddle. With it, I averaged 4.788 mph in my Tsunami, and I feel I could have done better but familiarity and conditions were against me that day. The biggest takeaway though for this paddle for me is, how light it was, and the feeling that I could paddle with this paddle all day. Even with my terrible mechanics. Again another paddle in the $150 range, that seems to bat well above its price class making it again one of the most affordable carbon fiber shaft paddles out there. The shaft is Carbon fiber, and the Blades are a glass filled sort of plastic. Which if I'm honest I prefer over the full carbon fiber Shaft/blades or a Carbon fiber Shaft and Fiberglass blades. Mostly because I'm terrible on the blades themselves. Use the paddle to push of things, so forth and so on. So if the blade material is brittle like fiberglass or Carbon fiber I tend to knock chips out of it in no time Granted this adds a bit more weight but if your hard on equipment like I am this may be for you. Again another product I was impressed with. The only Issue I had was when I ordered it from Amazon they shipped it with only one drip ring. I contacted their customer support and well they sent out another one (drip ring.) no charge. So great paddle, and stellar customer service. Either way I recommend.

Kids Sit-on-Top: Fantastic boat, When you little one is ready to move up this is a great transitional boat from something like the Lifetime wave. Even though it's a sit-on-top it's hull design is more like a sit in, with it's molded in seat you actually sit in the kayak giving it a lower center of gravity like a sit in with the ease of getting in and out that a SOT provides. With it's sit in hull design it moves faster than traditional SOT's more like the Sit in's and allows your younger paddlers to develop their skills. Being that it is a SOT, it's unsinkable, so even if they get dumped they can easily get back in. And when they get tired, the Tag-Along system easily allows you to tow them so no more listening to: Dad I'm tired on longer trips. It's molded in seat is, very comfortable, and allows good control of the boat something a lot of the SOT's do not do. Overall the 'V' hull design allows for it to track very straight and it's quite fast so parents watch out as you little ones hit the tween years they'll be running away from you and you may be hard pressed to keep up in some of the rec-boats out there. (Perceptions I'm talking to you.) Its weight carrying capacity is nothing to sneeze at either, with a listed capacity of 230 lbs, it still held and stayed afloat with my 6'4" 250lb frame on it, though at this point I was close to swamping it. But still this will easily take a child from anywhere around 6 to 18 (for an average kid that is.) and possibly into their 20's and beyond. The boat has a replaceable skid plate so the hull does not take damage if your child has to drag it on a portage as they may not be quite up to carrying it yet. the roto molding on the boat is also pretty thick so it can handle the bumps along the way too. The molded in handles are at the balance point of the boat so older kids and adults can pick the boat up and at 36 lbs you can easily hoist it over your head, and rest you head in the seat area for carrying. The boat also comes with handles front and rear so if you are with someone you can do front-rear carry and these make for outstanding tie down points too. Now it's not all sunshine and roses, there are some areas that could be improved on. There is no rear bungee on the cargo area. You can easily put in the eye pads for this, or have your outfitter do this, but it would be nice if it came from the factory this way. It also does not have a place to put a paddle leash, but again this is something you can easily do yourself with a drill and a pad-eye kit. And there is no Dry storage, however if you bungee the back deck you can easily put on a Dry-box, or a Dry-bag. Finally there is no paddle holder, when catering to kids, this is a handy feature especially when they get tired and you need to tow them with the tow system. Again something you could add easily but should come this way for a kids boat. But don't think for a moment that this is only a kids boat, it will also work well for adults, on the smaller side. They also market the Venus, for women, which is basically this boat with included dry storage and no tag-along system, but for $200 less than the Venus, you can have this boat and outfit it and still have money left over for a good paddle. All in all the Ocean Kayak Banzai is a great boat for beginning and intermediate children, moving out of the normal kids boat especially if they like the openness of a SOT, and not a bad choice for the money for smaller adults.

One of the lighter Paddles I have ever used weighing in at 29 Oz. The Kingpin Locking mechanism makes for a sturdy paddle with multiple feathering options in 5deg increments to 60 degrees it comes in lengths from 210cm to 240cm in 10cm increments. I did a 30+ mile speed tour tour with one 9 hours of near constant paddling and 3 tough low dam portages. the paddle was the least of the issue. Carbon fiber shaft, and glass reinforced polypropylene blades make for a light but durable paddle. I'd love to have Carbon all around but I'd destroy the blades, as I'm pretty tough on paddles, It only took me 1 year to break my Bending Branches Paddle. and so far on these Im into year 3 and they still look like new. for what they are the bat well above their weight, they play nicely in the $250 paddle class but at $150 they're a steal.

The Good: The small size, the Phase Three seating, Ample Aft Cargo hold, Retractable Skeg large internal volume.

The Bad: No paddle holder, weight.

Usually in a short boat of this type (10 Foot) they'll have a tendency to want to pivot L/R while being paddled. Surprisingly this boat does not It tracks straight, while being paddled, yet it still retains the high maneuverability that all short boats have. Paddle it a bit and then rest, and the boat still continues straight. Most boats Ive been in up to 14 ft, tend to hook either left or right depending on which side the last stroke was on. But if you are in wind, or a bit inexperienced with paddling and are having some trouble staying straight as an arrow simply drop the Skeg, and this thing tracks as well as my Tsunami 175.

It has a carrying capacity of 300 Lbs, making this ideal for day trips, and can hold most everything you would want to haul for a day out on the lake or river. Although the Skeg will eat up some of your cargo volume there is still ample room on either side if the Skeg to place something the size of a light weight sleeping bag and a solo tent, making this a good boat if you wanted to also do an overnight camping trip as the remainder of the storage area has enough room food pots and other camping essentials. There is also some additional room behind the seat in front of the bulkhead for some additional storage perhaps about a 20l dry bag.

The cargo area is bulk headed and the hatch locking and waterproof, giving you built in flotation should you get dumped. However I found the locking hatch levers were a bit tight to operate, necessitating pushing down on the hatch to operate the levers so as not to cause damage. This is perhaps done to insure the waterproof seal of the hatch, but it sort of left me feeling as if i Might break something perhaps this will wear in over time. Due to this tightness it is probably impossible to get into the hatch while out on the water.

Other appointments it has a bungee, water bottle holder, that can either hold a bottle upright, or lying down on it's side. It also has rear and forward bungee, however the rear one seems to be more of an ascetic as opposed to functional, the forward one is large enough to hold your life vest, should you not be wearing it or a waterproof bag.

The foot rests are the standard Wilderness systems adjustable rests and are quite functional and adjustable combined with the Phase three seating this makes for a boat that is quite comfortable to paddle all day.

Performance wise, the hull design appears to be based on a updated design for the venerable Pungo, even though this boat is shorter than the Pungo's it tracks just as well if not better (With the Skeg deployed.) and as for speed, the boat seems to be just about as fast belying it's short stature. Weight wise it comes in at about 45 LBS, which for a boat of this length is a bit on the heavy side, however this mostly seems to be duet to the added thickness of the roto-molding used, so good and bad. Bad that its a bit heavy, but good in that due to the extra thickness it'll take years of abuse and bouncing off or scraping over rocks. This may lend it to being a new favorite of outfitters.

In transporting this boat is quite easy to transport, if you hoist it onto a shoulder by the cockpit, it's balanced making it quite easy for single carry or solo portage. If you have two people the handles Fore and Aft make it a breeze to carry, so much so that I have carried two (One left hand and one right) with two people. For tying down to a car or SUV the handles fore and aft make great attachment points for tying down your boat, either in a "V" rack or with using "J" hooks.

My only complaint with this boat is a lack of a paddle holder that seems to be standard on recreational boats of this nature. This is easily addressed with aftermarket bits, either by your outfitter, or done by yourself as there is plenty of room to find a place.

So to wrap up, this was a surprising little boat, that punches well above it's weight performing in the class of the the 12 to 14 foot Pungo's making this a great choice for a for a day tripper class of boat, or a single night, maybe two (if you have a R/O filter.) for kayak camping. and if you keep the Skeg up, it would make for a great river boat, either flat water or up to class 1, it would also serve well for fishing too with adding on options for that.

All in all it's a great all around boat, the jack of all trades, and masters a few too.

The Good: Large Volume, Roomy Cockpit, adjustable Thigh Braces, and of course the Phase Three Seating, primary and Secondary Stability.

The Bad: The rudder control to prevent weather-cocking, tie down attachment points.

The Boat has long sleek lines, and travels deceptively fast, and on flat water you can do 4-5 Knots all day without effort, but try to go beyond that and the "V" hull will require power input from you on a logarithmic scale. Though it is possible to push the boat to 7 Knots you'll tire quickly. But again without a GPS it'll give you no indication of how fast you are going.

To give you an Idea of the boat speed I recently paddled around the entire navigable edge of marsh creek lake, going up every stream until I could not paddle it any further. the Total time was 2 hours and 30 minutes, this also includes unloading and loading the boat. Roughly 48,000Ft of paddling or 9.09 Mi (Average 3.6 mph.) on my leisurely paddle. As my goal was to see how long I could continuously paddle without getting tired Also testing out a brand new paddle too. Usually by this point in any other boat I am ready to be done, but in this instance I could have easily done another 2 hours or more at this pace. Suffice it to say you can easily and without tiring, overtake any of the Pungo's you might meet on the water.

Best uses for this boat, Long Distance Touring, or Kayak Camping. (Or both.)

Stability, both the primary and secondary stability are excellent, I've been in a few touring boats that due to their narrow hulls, feel tippy in their primary stability, and some that even with 40 some years of paddling experience, felt like they wanted to dump you in their secondary stability. Not so with this boat, primary stability is like sitting on the ground so getting in and out doesn't leave you with the feeling of "am I going in the drink this time." And secondary stability is also fantastic and lets you know where you are on edge. An inexperienced paddler might feel wary, and you can edged it almost to the cockpit rim.

The cockpit is well appointed and fits my 6'3" 250Lb frame rather well, in fact this boat and the Jackson Journey were the only boats I could get in and out easily. Most of the issue on other boats stemmed from the 33" inseam i have so doing the human origami was not required on either of these boats like it was on other boat models.

Storage, this boat has it all... Three water tight compartments. The bow compartment a Midships compartment and a huge Aft compartment. To give you an Idea of the size of the aft compartment I can easily stow my C-Tug Kayak cart in the Aft compartment. The Midships compartment is also quite large, I keep my gloves, spray skirts, and other miscellaneous items in here, and yes if you still have some flexibility you can easily reach it while out on the water. Additionally the Hatches are all attached to the boat (Via Cord) so losing them should you need to get into a compartment while on the water just isn't going to happen. Finally all three compartments are bulk-headed and water tight, so should you get dumped out, the boat will not sink, though practice your cowboy re-entries, but the large cockpit opening will make this a breeze.

So onto the rudder, It does what it is supposed to do, though the tactile feel of where the rudder is pointed is rather difficult to achieve. it sort of requires a bit of fiddling to get it right and the the boat tracking where you want it to go. Here the Jackson has a better system as it only requires pointing your toes as opposed to pushing with you whole leg. However once you get the boat aimed, it stays on course. Mind you though the rudder is only really necessary in high wind conditions as the boat seems to track completely straight up to about a 15-20 Mph wind. I chalk this up to the Deep "V" design and the Hard chines of the hull. Turning is about on par with any boat this long, so don't expect it to pirouette like a whitewater play boat, but he hard chines do provide excellent secondary stability, so Rudder and edging will get you turned about quickly. A complete U-turn can be accomplished in about 2 to 3 lengths of the boat. You can also pivot the boat but it'll take a bit of doing.

I feel that at-least for me control wise a skeg would have been a better option however since this boat was for touring and camping I really didn't want anything eating into my cargo space.

Tying it down can be a bit of a challenge, but I found little snap hooks that just fit the safety line, that allowed me to make tie down eyes on either side of the safety line attachment points. This is not a issue if Using "J" hooks on your roof rack but if you are using "V" pads on your crossbars, you'll need to either put in pad-Eyes or make something like I did. so your tie downs cant slide.

I bought this boat to run the Delaware River from the water-gap, to the ocean, and to do some camping out on some of the River Islands. With 400Lbs of carrying capacity, it has plenty of storage weight and room to hold all my necessary gear (150 LBS of it to be clear + my fat butt.) Tent, Sleeping Bag, cooking apparel, R/O filter, and food, Plus my Kayak cart, for any portages I may encounter. There are also fore and aft bungee points for additional storage should you need it if you are taking everything and the kitchen sink on a trip.

So if you are looking for a specialized long haul boat, or a boat with tons of cargo capacity for extended camping where you need to paddle in that won't tire you out getting there (And remember I'm a Fat out of shape old man.) I would highly recommend looking at the Tsunami 175.

If 17 foot is more boat than you can handle the Tsunami Line comes in 12ft, 14 ft 16 ft and of course 17 ft. with carrying capacities from 300Lb to 400Lb all with similar high speed lines, and in the under 16 ft they're more general purposed as a great all around boat for day tripping or whatever you want to do.