My son Ben, age 9, is a fairly new paddler with class II skills and experience on the Yough, and South Fork of the American mostly. He has been paddling a Dagger Dynamo and has also paddled the Fun 1. He demo'd a Fuse on the lower Yough for 4 days, and the new ASCI ww course in WISP in MD. Within his first hour of being in the boat he learned to roll ( a skill which had eluded him in the Fun and the Dynamo). It's a great river runner for my son's size, much less pushy in features than the Fun (at least for my kid). He was able to manever quite well in technical low water conditions, and also get good surfs. THe thing I really like about this boat too, is that as my son grows for the next couple of years he won't grow out of this boat...it will become his playboat. Outfitting is on the spare side (no bulkhead/foot pets) but we slapped some happy feet in and that worked fine I think this is agreat boat to compete with the...