KaiVa'a ?

Anyone have any news on what's happening with Kai Va'a's new ski? Throw me a bone....anything!

Thanks

I did an oc clinic with him in Kauai this August. If I remember correctly, he said it was going to be in production by either October or November, so I'm expecting to see it any day now.
Nice picture of it here: www.kaiwaa.com/surfski

Another sneak peek of the Kai Wa'a Vega.

Here they come, the first Vega's are being painted up. You can view them on the outrigger zone online inventory system (ois). 

Nice! Thanks for that, pnwpaddler!    Any idea if there's more work happening on other models? Any details on weight, production dimensions, etc?  I didn't see anything on the KaiWa'a site yet. 

I did a brief interview with Kai Bartlett when the news first broke.

He did say at that point:

The length of our surfski is 21 feet (6.4m) and the width is 16 13/16 inches (42.7cm) wide.

www.surfski.info/latest-news/story/1658/...-build-surfskis.html 

I've dropped him a line to confirm that nothing's changed in the measurements and to ask what weight the ski is at and what layups...  

Now we need a proper review!

Something that I find interesting with the Vega - the rocker profile seems a lot different than usual. Typically rocker is a smooth-ish banana shape with a circular bend throughout and no sharp transition (front to back), maybe with a flat spot near the middle of the boat. 

The bow rocker on the Vega looks like there is a distinct point about 1-1.5m back from the tip, between the 3rd and 4th vertical line in the animated drawing,  where the whole bow angles upwards in addition to some traditional up curve. I dont know that I've seen a rocker profile like this on a ski, and am interested to hear from people how it behaves on a wave. My guess is this will make the boat very responsive on a wave face and possibly reduce the 'locked in' effect when you really get picked up. 

Now if only they would scale this up to a 46-48cm beam that the other 98% of us could paddle

MClmes, good catch with the rocker profile. I took a look at the profile of his Ares oc1, and it seems to have the same rocker. Kai has always been known to design oc1's that excel in the surf. It looks very similar to the Ares overall, so I'm interested to see how similar it is in feel to an oc1. Looking at the third picture, I can't really see any hump under the knees, although it could just be the angle of the photo. 

Ozone's manufacturing for oc1's uses two different layups. Standard models where the hull weighs 18 pounds and pro models which weigh 16 pounds (I've even heard of some coming out at 15.5). I would suspect he'll do something similar with the surf ski.

I gather from Kai that they're not quite available yet.  He said:

We get a couple here at the end of December. Should be unloading container the first week of January.

On weight, he said:

The production is all pre-preg carbon and weights have been coming in at 20-21lbs.  We are uncertain yet on whether we will be doing a “Pro” version (pending testing, etc.), if we do it will be lighter than that, probably in the 16lbs range.