Thursday, August 10, 2017

The Jackson Cruise FD is coming!

One of the surprises at this year's ICAST was a prototype of the new Jackson Cruise FD kayak.  It's sibling, the Jackson Coosa FD came into the trade show as a "new model" and was featured in the New Product Showcase even though it was unveiled at Outdoor Retailer last year.  The Coosa FD recently arrived at Jackson dealers everywhere and has been a smash at the demo days.  The "FD" stands for "Flex Drive", Jackson's patent-pending system that uses a unique articulating system for both deep and shallow navigation. A daggerboard protects the 3-blade propeller allowing for navigation among stumps and other underwater structures, and even into shallow water. While the propeller system is what makes this boat special, the Coosa FD has retained many of the features of the paddle version.  Likewise, in creating the Cruise FD, Jackson has opted to retain the cleaner layout design that fly anglers and less-hardcore conventional anglers loved so much about the paddle Cruise.  The Cruise FD will not be as long and wide as the Coosa FD, so likely not as stable.  And of course not as featured.  But it will be less expensive - likely $1999 compared to $2999.  That alone will likely make it a big seller.