Riot revamped its site and now has new boats in the touring and rec categories. The most interesting one for me though is the "Brit Style" Aurora - 17'10"x20.5", VCP hatches, skeg. Sports what appears to be fairly acute chines and doesn't seem to have a lot of rocker -- a cruiser to be turn by leaning/edging.
This boat may be compared to and/or in competiton with the Necky Chatham in the "new" touring category of boats.
Possible 2nd foster rip off the dimensions and hull characteristics look alot like Foster’s Silhouette. The chines don’t look quite as distinct though, and it says v shaped hull not rounded. But 17’10" with a 20.5" beam with a relatively low fore and aft deck. The way the hatches are recessed even looks like foster’s. Of course alot of these boats start to look alike after a while. They all have vcp hatches, a keyhole cockpit, etc, etc.
Riot still did a better job with the deck lines than foster, he won’t hear a word against the way they’re shipped, even thought they don’t have full rescue lines.
Azul Sultan I don’t think this is a new boat or a copy of the Foster Silohette, but just a renaming of their Sultan which they were marketing under the Azul brand name before they consolidated everything under the Riot name. The Sultan is a hull that they didn’t design themselves, but bought the rights too from “Paradigm” which was a small company in Florida that origionally designed and built the boat. At least that is what I was told from the dealer that I bought my Azul Sultan from. I find it well built, reasonably stable for its’ width, carves turns and is quite quick.
the way I heard it… NF had nothing officially to do with Scott’s Paradigm (original name for the Sultan/ Aura) design. The similarities are there for sure but me thinks the design is Scott’s original idea, done outside of the business relationship the two had. NF wasn’t exactly happy about all the similarities.
Riot’s gone thru alot of changes over the years and this appears to be a consolidation/ re-name scheme.
how many sea kayak designers sit in a vacuum and come up with a totally "unique" design? We're talking about a craft that's been around for how long? Short of taking someone's boat and making mold with it...
Now if you want a truly "unique" design (even here it's a "catakayak"), here's one but do you want to "paddle" it? :)