This new Liquidlogic design the Powerslide is a play on the “I wanna’ go fast” Ricky Bobby-style racing culture. In short, this boat just looks like it really wants to go fast around turns. Designed by the prolific Shane Benedict, the new Powerslide is a one-size river runner, trying to land right in the medium-sized paddler range.
At 10 feet, it’s a high performance river runner. Jonesing for something more performance oriented, Shane went to the drawing board. As he sees it, the trend is bigger and bigger, and easier boats to paddle. He wanted to go the other direction, with the Powerslide hailing a bit narrower at 25” wide. He took a bunch of cues from slalom boats, especially with the stern half of the boat, resulting in a boat that specializes in carving turns, as well as ripping S-turns and stern pivots. It’s a race boat-inspired river runner, with the kick rocker behind the tail reminiscent of the Mullet but more subtle. The stern is much smaller, so watch out for the party; it’s about 25 inches wide where the Mullet is 27 inches wide.
Shane says he started working on it in middle of the summer of 2023 and that it has a “fast and nimble focus.” “It has a lot of the slalom boat stuff but a flat hull with hard chines with a lot of modern design,” he says. “And the stern rocker is less. It will be a killer Grand Canyon boat.” That means it’s a boat for hitting green waves on the fly.
Available in Gold, Shark Blue, and Venom (green), the boat’s weight range will be about 120-220 lbs. With shipping starting in March, it will also feature the same badass outfitting you see on all LL boats.
The Need for Speed
If you’re not keen on a Stinger or 12-foot race boat but want to get creative and rip on the river in something with speed, this might be your ticket. “When you’re paddling a long boat like a Stinger or Vanguard, you don’t get dynamic speed of carving in and out of the eddies, because those boats are made to go straight fast,” he says. “You don’t get old-school boat speed, carving in and out of eddies with maneuverability like this boat will provide. The Powerslide will be stealing some guys out of their Outbursts”.
Shane’s idea was to push designs as they froze up at 9 feet—mirroring the whole reason LL went up to 9 feet with the Remix back in the day.
If you’ve been around, you know that the designs Shane and LL have come up with the past 15 years have inspired entire boat design trends in the industry. The Homeslice breathed new air into the double slice, the Stinger inspired a better downriver racing design than the Green boat, and the Brap inspired a lineage of boat designs in the half slice realm.
“To be honest it is just a boat I want to paddle,” he says (as if we can all paddle like him).
Shane says he was intrigued by something that he hadn’t done in a while and admits that’s what triggers his inspiration for new designs—as with the Homeslice, where he admits “There was a ton of Mr. Clean in there”. He says he’s intrigued by its speed and is inspired to paddle the river more like a slalom boater. He says it’s a boat he wants to take out on the rivers he runs regularly, not on the hardest runs he does.