About myself

I'm a class IV paddler, I'm used to ride rivers in NW Italy, as well some French rivers.

About the test environment

I had the occasion to use Corto on different kind of rivers since I bought it 6 month ago, in this report I'll mention Oum R Bia, a IV+ volume river in Morrocco. and Sermenza, which is a classic V class river in Sesia Valley, North-Western Italy.
Some more details, Oum R Bia has been paddled on march 2006 and it was really with high level, the expert guys with me decided to classify it IV+ continuous, in other period could be easier.
Sermenza is a classic river in my region, it is basically made of short technical passages with some jumps, most of them have big return at the base.
A description, unfortunately in Italian but with some pics can be found here

Review

There is one thing that you notice at first sight, and it is not a good one.
Boat is made with cheap materials, and even some construction choices are made to save money.
There are a lot of screw on the boat, plastic is a little bit soft and backrest... well it could be made better.
But the worst is the footrest, it is not made by a plate but it is an old fashioned one, really bad if you get pinned after an high jump.
For this reason I have modified it, but if you buy a new boat you can ask a different version from the manufacturer.
I posted an article on my siteabout modifying the footrest. It is in italian but there are a lot of pictures.

Now let's talk about good things.
First of all the hull shape remembers a lot the Dagger Mamba shape, backside is a little bit fatter than Mamba.
Copied or not, the boat shape is very good and when I found myself on a volume river I really appreciate it's behaviour.
It reacts very softly, and it is very forgiving.
It has a quite wide flat hull, this improve stability but it's not the best for speed and I have noticed some lacks in keeping directions.
Anyway I can't say it's a slow boat and after all it is not difficult to control it.
The big rounded noose helps a lot for improving hole punching and after jumps it emerges always in a good position.
The overall rounded shape helps a lot for eskimos, it rolls very easily.

Conclusion

Pros:
Price
Easy
Stable
Good behaviour in almost any conditions

Cons:
Poor material
Poor outfitting
Too many screw around