Hi, I'm Sarah from Boating New Zealand, and
we're here today at Takapuna beach to look
at the TakaCat. It's a beautiful day, maybe
one of the last that we'll have.
Let's get on with it!
Greg Sowden the designer and
manufacturer of the TakaCat was
brought up on the shore, spent a lot of
time down Taka beach so he said when
it came time to name his new invention
Taka was the way to go. He's been
making these for about seven years now,
this is the latest development the
TakaCat LiteX, and it comes in two model
sizes a 3 m, and a 3.4 m.
And today, We've got these
two boats paired with
the latest Honda four stroke outboards.
We've got, a four horse here,
and a six horse, on the
larger model so, we'll talk a bit
about those as well.
So to put the boats together, all you
have to do is take it out of the bag.
We put the floats down, put in the bottom
part of the transom. Inflate one pontoon.
Put in the other part of the transom
and inflate the other pontoon.
Then the floor nestles in between, as it is inflated
and you're ready to go.
If you're experienced, you've done this a few times,
you can do it in less than ten minutes.
and deflate the whole thing in less than five.
So just to demonstrate how light this
boat really is, check this out.
Just like that, that gives you a really good look
at the underside, that nice tough base.
You can actually drag it up the beach,
but it does also have wheels on the back
which we'll look at in a minute.
The big difference between this boat and earlier
TakaCats, is this bow design. Instead
of the Pontoons being tapered into a
point, it's got this open bow, which
might look a bit disturbing at first,
you're like, this boats got no front,
but it's got some really practical applications.
Really easy for climbing on and off of,
if you're in the water. Kids climbing in and out.
If you're diving, just sitting here
rolling into the water, getting gear on
and off out of the water.
If you bring stuff back from driving.
This floor although it's inflatable, rather than
rigid, is really tough. Feels really good
nice and firm, nice and stable, and it
will hold all your dive tanks and all
your gear.
Plenty of stuff to hold on to, both on the
outside and also the inside, depending on
where you're sitting and, how you're getting in and out.
The boats also come with oars,
so they can be rowed.
This is another new invention, the float seat.
This is a really nice little cushion
of air, that you can move around instead
of having a fixed seat that always gets
in the way, or isn't in the right position.
You can just move this around
to wherever you want it.
The TakaCat is heaps of fun out on the
water too. It might look like a wet
little boat but it's actually
surprisingly dry, very stable and it's
almost got a floating on air kind of
sensation, with that inflatable floor
rather than a hard slamming floor.
It maneuvers easily and it's just heaps
of fun!
So today we're also looking at these new
Honda four strokes. This is a new range
BF, four five and six. So those are two new
classes for a small Honda engine.
They're all four strokes. They've all got this new
aerodynamic cowling, and this grab handle.
They're about twenty seven kilos,
so nice and lightweight.
These new models also have low emissions.
They're much quieter.
They've got a one and a half litre internal tank.
You can go for about forty
minutes at full noise before you run out of gas.
Now it's over to Cam from Honda
with more details about the BF range of outboards.
Thanks Sarah, I'm Cameron from
Honda Marine, we're here today to look at
the BF four five and six.
Specifically i've got a
BF six on display here.
Within the new range
the four five and six are all
the same physical size and weight,
and we have two variants available with the
short shaft fifteen inch, or a longer shaft twenty inch.
Some of the key features about the
new four five and six, is they've all got a
built-in 1.5 Litre petrol tank.
That's the largest fuel tank available in a
portable engine.
We've got the option of
an external tote tank, that gives you
great great range.
They've all got a new
redesigned engine mounting bracket
completely isolated from the engine
power head, and the tiller arm so when
the motors running, there's very
little vibration coming through there from
the engine, through the transom or
through the tiller handle.
All of them have got a much
much simplified starting system.
It's a digital ignition system and
they've got a balancing shaft inside the
engine which means when you are starting
the engine there's very little recoil or
very little force required to start the
motor, and then with that digital
ignition system that means that when you
do push the stop button
the motor stops instantly.
The motors are also backed up
like all of the Honda's with a
seven-year warranty.
That's seven years unlimited hours.
There's no diminishing
clauses within our warranty program,
the engines are as warranted up to seven
years as they are on day one.
All right thanks Sarah and back to you guys at the beach.
Instead of having to find an aftermarket
product that fits.
The boat comes with it's own beach wheels.
These just unclip, turn them around,
clip them on and away you go.
These new TakaCats, they're really
practical heaps of fun people like Coast
Guard and event organizers at rowing
events and sailing events are using them as well.
But for family, divers, people
want to swim or fish, go ashore from a boat,
they've got some really practical applications.
They fold-down really small.
They're really lightweight.
Easy to assemble, and off you go.
These new Honda outboards
are a great pairing as well, nice and quiet,
low emissions, easy to use and good grip.
I think it's a great pairing and you can
have a lot of fun on the water.
John Eichelsheim from Boating New Zealand.
Thanks for watching.
If you'd like to see more of these videos,
please subscribe to our Channel.
Subtitles by BBGroup NZ.