Articles - Ophion Rapture Custom Paddles Tested

Tried & Tested


More info: www.ophionpaddles.com

RRP: From £220

Intro
Ophion paddles have been popping up at UK play spots, and on UK whitewater rivers, for a good few years now, and they seem to have developed in to a hot favourite amongst the UK’s budding, young freestyle paddlers too. So we decided it was high time that we checked these interesting paddles out; and so I took a set out for a few months of CK Test Team water time.
Ophion are a Slovakian company whose prime focus is to bring a kayak paddle to the paddling world that can be entirely custom made to the individual paddler’s needs. Sounds great! A truly tailor made paddle, a gap in a busy and competitive market indeed. So we took these paddles to the water to see what they could do.

First Impressions
Straight out of the wrapping the Ophions looked solid and stylishly designed with a very sleek finish. The paddle blade size looked rather small, so we were interested in how much power you could get from these bad boys. Being a big paddler I am used to having big powerful blades to get me back into the hole quickly, so I was very interested to see whether they could drive you back into the hole and out on to fast waves. The blade shape was very different to other paddles that I’ve used; with an almost ribbed section on the paddle, a design feature that would look more familiar on winged paddles used for marathon and sprint racing.

To the Water!
We had the cranked version of the Rapture to test, which sat nicely in the hands and felt comfortable in terms of the shaft circumference. In the hole, the back face of the blade had enough balance to initiate cartwheels and splitwheels. In terms of power these little monsters are super-powerful for a blade with such a small surface area. The ribs on the blade helped scoop the water up by the bucket load allowing you to get back in the game on the occasional flush. There’s no doubt about this paddle being designed for the cutting edge freestyle market. But all this comes at a price, with a starting price at £220, these paddles are top-end but then they’re tailor made to your demands and for anyone whose serious about their freestyle paddling then these could well be just the ticket.

Conclusion
Overall we liked the Raptures their power on the water was very impressive and their tidy, well thought out features were very inviting and comfortable to paddle with. Having browsed the Ophion website there seems to be an awful lot of choice, as you’d expect from a company offering true paddle tailoring, and this is great for paddlers who know what their looking for in a paddle but for those starting off in freestyle or whitewater paddling it could perhaps leave them slightly confused by all the jargon such as, ‘Fibreglass reinforced with carbon’ and. ‘Ergonomic carbon Kevlar.’ But having said that these are paddles aimed at specialists for pure freestyle performance and they do that very well, and that’s what you get for the price. A blade that’s tailor made to you with freestyle being the ultimate focus. So if you’re looking for a new ‘ultimate freestyle blade’ to throw down move on the Thames Weirs this autumn, or for trips further a field, in search of big freestyling fun, then perhaps have a gander at the Ophion Raptures.







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