Every now and then, a product comes on the market that challenges the conventional wisdom about what’s “cool” and what’s usable. The Santa Cruz “Raptor” is such a product. At first glance, it looks like the child of a Dutch shoe and a toboggan. Those of us who use SOT kayaks probably wouldn’t even give it a second glance. Jim Martin, the owner of Santa Cruz kayaks and creator of the Raptor recently sent one of his kayaks to me to demo, and after looking it over like it was a space alien, I did demo it. It was awesome!