Pyranha Kayaks Loki Whitewater Kayak Specifications

Getting Started

We thoroughly put the Pyranha Loki Whitewater Kayak through its paces at the whitewater course at the National Watersports Centre at Nottingham, which is a fantastic testing ground for getting the feel for what this boat can do.

For good measure we also took it right across to the other side of the UK to Anglesey in North Wales, to give it a go in a slightly different environment, much more of the marine variety.

In our latest whitewater kayak review, we put the Loki to the test.

On The Water

Our initial gut reaction, which has only been reinforced the longer that we paddle this kayak, is that Pyranha have succeeded in what they set out to do, which was to create a pedigree play boat for making all of the classic moves really easy.

Also, they’ve made a boat that can handle itself on a river; enabling you to play on your way down and saving you having to drive to a hole! Its length and continuous rocker profile aid this a great deal, giving you the speed to move from feature to feature.

Moving across the flow to get back to the eddy to paddle up for another go is no problem at all, either.

Whether it’s down river, or eddy hopping back up, the Pyranha Loki is fast and forgiving meaning you’ll hit those must-make eddies.

As a play boat the Pyranha Loki is a perfect kayak for getting the feeling for throwing descent sized ends.

If you’ve got the general idea of how to get these, but have always found that you struggle to get them in some other play boats despite other kayakers making it look frustratingly easy, then the Loki might be the boat in which you find you can finally crack it.

We found the ends to be both easy to initiate and very stable.

The key ingredients here are those low volume slicey ends, which make vertical moves in the Pyranha Loki as straight forward as horizontal movement in kayaks with less of a penchant pointing their bows skyward at the minutest suggestion.

In the hole the rails won’t trip you up, but at the same time they are sharp enough that they’ll really help you get up on edge when you need to and drive the boat to where you want it to be.

This balance of forgivingness and control makes this the ideal boat for less experienced paddlers to really work on developing their moves, but intermediates and experts will still enjoy the responsive performance of this boat.

Get the Pyranha Loki on a wave and its super-friendly, loose hull makes it’s a joy to shred up any wave on the river or ocean!

That non-flat hull with continuous rocker really comes into its own here; all that it wanted to do was to sit down the face of the wave and constantly keep on the move, ripping as it went.

And this is not to mention the fact that if you get the hull moving on a wave it will blunt all day long, should you want it to.

When we were testing off Anglesey, although the wave at Stanley Embankment wasn’t at it’s best, the Pyranha Loki allowed us to carve up the wave getting it right up onto it’s side.

The Pyranha Loki is in every sense a ‘new school play boat.’

One of the challenges that needed to be cracked when creating it was providing the foot room needed without compromising the hull shape that makes it do what it does so well.

This has been done successfully and really pays off.

Fixtures & Fittings

The Pyranha Loki comes with Pyranha’s Connect 30 Outfitting, which we’ve always found is easy to adjust to a good fit.

We were happy to find that after getting off from a longish session on the water, the boat was still as dry as a bone straight out of the box, without any prior bolt tightening required.

We couldn’t knock the overall build quality at all.

Review Summary