Less Time Reacting, More Time Acting » Pyranha Blog Leave a comment
Pyranha Kayaks is delighted to have partnered with GuiGui-Prod to do maximum, plastic-based justice to their next-generation freestyle design, the Helectron.
In GuiGui-Prod’s words, “It has been way too long since GuiGui-Prod unveiled a new freestyle machine. We are beyond stoked to be able to say the wait is finally over, and believe us, it has been worth it.” For us here at Pyranha, the wait has been even longer… It’s been over a decade, in fact, since the Jed was released, and yet, the wait has still been more than worth it.
This absolute weapon of a freestyle kayak takes your breath away, even before you paddle it. The Helectron looks sharp, sleek, sexy, and sporty. It practically begs you to get it on the water, whether that’s a man-made course, a natural river, a tidal surf spot, or even just a flatwater session.
The Helectron’s development aimed to retain the tried, tested, and perfected features of GuiGui’s previous design, the Helixir, while improving upon the features which still had potential to be improved – a difficult brief, hence the wait!
Finally, after five prototypes, almost a year and a half of relentless development, and testing which took place on waves and in holes across Europe, the Helectron is here to put a fresh spark of energy in your freestyle game.
So what’s new? Let’s give you a quick walkthrough:
1. The first thing you will notice about the Helectron is that the shape of the bow has changed from a round to a more squared design. This change makes it easier for you to maintain control when plugging in powerful holes. The squared bow also helps the boat pop out of the rotation of McNasties and Phoenixes straighter, ensuring you land those tricks within scoring angles. The new distribution of the volume on the bow combined with this squared design means you won’t need to be David McClure to be able to go both clean and huge on your loop tricks.
2. The second thing about the Helectron which stands out is the sexy stern. A lot of volume has been added to the tip of the back end, making the kayak a lot more reactive on tricks like the Lunar Orbit and the Tricky Woo – expect judges to start having to give a lot more air bonuses on these! The idea for giving extra pop to Lunars and Trickies is to allow you to drive the bow deep and turn these tricks into big, aerial trophy moves by jumping out of them with huge loops. Even though the Helectron appears to be less slicey than the Helixir, you’ll be surprised to see how easy it is to go clean on your warm-up, flat-water cartwheels. It slices through water like a white-hot knife through warm butter!
3. When you look at the hull of the Helectron, two elements will stand out compared to the Helixir series; the Helectron has a sick hull with a primary edge inspired by the epic, high-performance wave design of the Helixir 2013, and a secondary edge which will only come into play when leaning hard over your edges looking for big, inverted wave moves, surfing steep green waves, and slaying wave combos.
The simplicity and minimalism of the hull design mean the boat is looser than ever and can grind even the smaller green waves.
4. Stern Boosters – this is what we’ve called the new features under the stern of the kayak. The idea behind these boosters is to keep the kayak’s bow down when surfing forward while keeping the speed and making big bounces and Ollies easy. The boosters also help the rails maintain the kayak’s trajectory when tracing a diagonal from the foam pile to the shoulder of the wave, ensuring maximum speed and control at the moment of take-off.
The Helectron is the next natural step in GuiGui-Prod’s hero journey to design and manufacture the best freestyle kayaking weapons on Earth. It will help you get more proactive in your freestyle kayaking and spend less time reacting, and more time acting.
This is Elite
The GuiGui-Prod x Pyranha Kayaks Helectron comes with Pyranha’s new Elite outfitting system, which has been redesigned from the hull up to give you optimal control of the Helectron throughout dynamic moves and hit combo after combo with less fatigue.
The Elite Outfitting System allows you to:
– Fine-tune your seat position on the fly for optimal balance.
– Quickly and reliably lock in your backrest with the next-generation cleat setup.
– Get a grip with our 3-way adjustable hooker thigh grips.
– Enjoy long rides in the comfy-cosy padded seat and matching, extra-wide backrest.
– Comfortably shoulder the kayak and run back up for another ride thanks to the cockpit rim pads.
Pyranha Kayaks – By Enthusiasts, For Enthusiasts
Pyranha is unique in its position as an independent manufacturer, with a team of enthusiasts handling everything from start to finish, and five decades of laser-focussed plastic compound and rotomoulding technology development and experience. We specifically and exclusively aim solely to produce market-leading canoes and kayaks – we might mess around in boats, but we don’t mess around when we’re making them.
GuiGui-Prod – Builders of State-of-the-Art Freestyle Kayaks
Guillaume “GuiGui” Respaud started off building custom composite slalom boats for a renowned French brand and crafting his own passion-project freestyle designs in whatever spare time he could find in between. Soon, he’d built a workshop behind his house in Southern France, and his designs had become widely renowned for their innovation and sturdy construction, and Guillaume’s passion project went full-time as “GuiGui-Prod”!
