Shrike B450 plastic sea & surf kayak
My friends at Sydney Harbour Kayaks have introduced a new brand of kayaks, Shrike, to their already impressive quiver of paddle-craft. After being talked up as incredibly high-quality hand-made boats I asked to take one for a test paddle, and in blasting 30 knot winds and armed with my greenland paddle, out I went.
First impressions – the boat was pretty difficult to get into for a big fella like myself, and it took a bit of effort to squeeze myself into the cockpit. This is a common issue for me, and for someone a bit lighter I can’t imagine this would be much of an problem.
Stability in the boat is pretty good considering it has such a streamlined shape, and I was impressed at how much lean I could push into her without tipping myself into the drink.
Shrike B450 - clean sweeping lines, light-weight plastics
The speed for a plastic kayak is excellent. Paddling alongside Shannon from Sydney Harbour Kayaks, who was paddling a composite Boréal Design kayak, and even with my greenland paddle he was struggling to keep up with me. For a plastic kayak, the speed is really very impressive, and enabled by both its streamlined shape and its incredible lightness (enabled, Shannon tells me, but an innovative construction technique keeping the weight down to a measley 22kg – astounding!). Its nicely finished off with hatch-covers made from 100% recycled plastic, a plus for those of us with a slight green leaning.
The rudder system is an innovative sprung-sling system than needs to be seen to be understood, and is quite an innovation in terms of rudder storage design. In terms of steering though, I found it a little soft, but the Shrike B450 is incredibly manouverable without the rudder, and I found myself easily throwing the boat around with edging and paddle strokes.
The Shrike B450 classic kayaker's bow shot
In terms of general feel, this is a really fun boat. I bounced her around some big swell and boat wake and found her really easy to handle. Her manouverability makes this boat ideal for rock-gardening, and if it wasn’t the demo stock I would have loved to have bounced her off some rocks in the surf! This is a undoubtedly a close-shore specialist and if it came in a bigger size I’d love to have one for surfing, exploring and general fun amongst the rocks. A great addition to the SHK range – thanks for the test paddle!
The Shrike 540 looks remarkably identical to Challenge Kayaks Australia (and formerly New Zealands Chanlange Kayaks) Challenge Sequel.
I paddle a “Sequel” out of Albany and they are identical in almost every detail.
An error in my post I was referring to the Shrike B450 not 540 as written in my earlier post I am still intrigued about the design and its similarity to the Challenge Sequel
Gday Adrian! You might be right – I know the current manufacturers bought a Kiwi design/mould (although they have updated the materials and manufacturing process), so it may well be the Challenge. I’ll get the team at Sydney Harbour Kayaks to find out for you. Cheers! 🙂
These kayaks are infact manufactured from the team at Challenge – we really liked these 2 kayaks and started working with John to push the development further especially for the Sydney Market – we then decided it needed a good dose of marketing and demo-ing and really show how many wonderful features are on these kayaks.
SHK taking over all marketing and further development allows the team in Byron to really concentrate on just producing wonderful AUSTRALIAN Made kayaks.
We have packeaged them up with a lot of extra kit and they have been selling like hotcakes. Any further information or dealer enquiries please call me
Shannon
Thanks for the feedback re the Shrike/Sequel. Ive had my Sequel for a number of years and it came out of the NZ shop. Its probably a bit dated now but still going strong.
The beauty of it is that the guys at Challenge Australia keep me functioning with parts etc and advice.
The Shrike /Sequel are great boats to paddle, they track well, are robust and unforgiving and handle pretty well most conditions they are in my opinion for al levels from a novice through to a seasoned kayaker.
I would certainly opt for another when it comes time for replacement it also means that my money is buying “Australian” and that is my first consideration.