Safety as its primary design.
How many times have you stood at the side of a river looking down at a pinned, swamped boat, folded over a rock, and wondered how you were going to get it off? You're thinking, "lucky there's nobody in it". But it could happen next time.

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It's no secret that watercraft such as ships and submarines have sealed bulkhead compartments. It's therefore no surprise that sea kayaks, often exposed to dangerous environments, have adopted this system of compartmentalization as a primary safety feature. A swamped boat is nearly unsalvageable. A boat that has almost half of its volume still packed with air, on the other hand is an entirely different matter. Whether you're swimming it to shore yourself, or you're the unlucky soul that has been given the task of rescuing someone else's kayak as it works its way relentlessly over drop after drop as you struggle with its completely submerged shell.

In addition to providing a guaranteed airtight compartment, bulkheads also offer far more structural support than a longitudinal wall. The combination of the stern bulkhead and the footbrace bulkhead (not sealed for access to bow storage) creates a type of "rib cage" inside the kayak, making it far safer. The longer-than-normal cockpit, combined with the molded-in thigh hooks (eliminating the protruding bolted in version still used by many kayak manufacturers) allows us to provide a completely unrestricted paddler area in the cockpit. Easy entry and exit means safer paddling.

Four strong carabiner attachment points around the cockpit plus two nylon reenforced rubber handles ensure that if ever the kayak is ever pinned, there is ways one or more points that can be reached and used for extraction.

Paddling as a primary design
Most paddlers today paddle planing hulled playboats. The transfer of these skills to a displacement hull can be unnerving at times. In an attempt to solve this, many designers have added planing style hulls to creek boats. However, as the leaders of planning hulled boats, we have also found over time that planning hulls on rocky creeks are not what we once thought they might be. Boats react to rocks differently than they do to water. Having sharp edges, concaved scoops, and vertical sidewalls catch rocks and can flip the paddler, or throw the kayak wildly off line. Consequently, much thought was put into the hull design of the Big Gun; to provide a user friendly and familiar feeling platform, on an exceptionally predictable and safe kayak.

The answer was far from simple. A narrow flat section in the centre, extending outward to well rounded chines and sides to glance and spring off rocks without catching, and lessen impact from high boofs. Highly rockered centre for a fast spin, total pitch control forward or back for boofing, sweeping across rocks, and turning in very tight areas. Flat rocker profile, and planing hull style edges in the first 16" per end give the same paddling feel as a planning hulled kayak and offer increased acceleration due to better water release.

The reduced tip rocker and edges provides the same water separation from the tips used in wave spinning, but is used to separate water from the ends when boofing even those unboofable drops. How well do they work - the Big Gun can be flat spun on a green wave (not that was a design consideration).

The carefully shaped deck encourages the kayak to lift AND accelerate forward at the same time, and not just explode to the surface which often results in getting stuck in the hole you're boofing. Reaching top speed in two strokes, and Big Gun will fly over everything in your path for a totally dry ride.

River runner as its primary design
The common problem with today's shorter designs is storage space. But who wants to give up performance for increased storage? The answer is simple. Maximize the space that is there. The simplest was to do this is to remove the stern wall. You not only gain the space taken by the wall itself, but you also eliminate the inefficiency that automatically comes from splitting compartments.

Whether you're only carrying safety equipment, or food and clothing for a week-long expedition, you want your gear to stay in place and stay dry. Since we had already designed into the Gig Gun the sealed bulkhead, a stern mounted hatch was the obvious answer. We looked everywhere to find the best hatch on the market - dry, strong and easy to use. The opening is larger than the openings on each side of a normal seat and cockpit combo, and gives a "spray skirt" dry seal. Combined with a light dry bag, your gear is guaranteed to stay dry.

Loading affects trim, and thus performance. If the kayak is giong to be loaded, it must be trimmed. If the food is going to be eaten, then trim must be constantly adjusted. Therefore, trimming must be quick and easy. The D3 seat offers the best possibilities on the market for this. Load her up, slide the seat up to 6" forward and she's trimmed for maximum performance. Eat your food, and day by day move the seat back as needed in just seconds. The front bulkhead footbrace comes out in just seconds too, so gear can be placed in the nose (though a dry bag is required).

The Big Gun overview
We set out to design the safest, highest performing and best thought river runner and creeker in the world. A kayak that would always look after you no matter how hard things got - a kayak that would always be there for you when you really need your boat to back you up. We wanted a kayak that would allow you to go on extended overnight trips and minimise the problems associated with gear transport, or a kayak that would be perfect for those 3 hr class 5 madness runs. A kayak that would allow the paddler a feel familiar to the playboat, but without the serious disadvantages associated with planing hulled creekers. The Big Gun is the most thought out creeker ever to come from Riots R+D table, and probably the world.