Feelfree Lure Overdrive VS Native Watercraft Titan 10.5 Propel

What you got for me? These two are the ones I'm interested in right there. You got a friend don't you? You know he only does this for you. All right guys so we got the drive all set up. You see the rudder installed back here. We got the seat adjusters in place looking good. You got height adjustment, forward and backwards adjustment, your hand control rudders right here, and the drive itself. I have it up here in the stowed position flush with the bottom. Now I do intend you guys to do a full walkthrough video but today we're pressed for time so let's go ahead and just get this on the water. We'll do some initial testing and I'll get back with you guys tomorrow. Sound good? So we decided it would be fun to put the lure up against the Titan 10.5. That's a new boat for us and seems to be a very very popular one. So similar size, similar capacity. We thought it would be fun to put them head-to-head and just kind of compare and contrast. They're not the same boat but maybe a potential same user. The first test we're going to do is a maneuverability test. So I've got Matt here. He's going to be our test pilot and I told him to just, nice purple life jacket by the way, to just come in tight here and uh you know this is a spot that somebody would be likely to fish. Kind of spin it around tight and see how it feels, see how it does, and then we'll run the Titan through the same course. So it's pretty good. Let's grab the Titan and see how it spins around there. Big weight difference. The Titan's heavier. Yeah I think this one's about, I don't know, with the drive-in probably over 100 pounds, maybe 105. Yeah it's got to be. It's a couple inches, like two inches wider. It's deeper. Deeper. Do you like the depth better on that? I think it makes it more stable. I mean you're sunk on your foot. Okay. I wonder how it would be in the wind. Unfortunately we don't have any wind today but that might uh you know does deeper mean more windage? Maybe not. It looks really good on the water. Coming into the obstacle course. Let's see how this boat handles compared to the lure. Lure was pretty impressive but man look at that Titan just drift. Huh. It does turn better. It's got a little bit of tail swing doesn't it? Like almost like it's like a Tokyo Driftmobile. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like the back end slides around but there's no doubt the turning radius on that, the turning radius on that Titan is much better. I think because the rudder on this has moved forward. Yeah definitely. I mean your turning point moves forward so that is incredible. All right that one will have to go to the Titan for sure. Maybe we should do a like a one through five scale. A five yeah. The amount of the pedal drives that we've been in, we've been quite a few, I'd say that's probably the gold standard as far as maneuverability. All right well this isn't fun. I'm gonna get in the water and we're gonna do a little drag race. Can't let Matt have all the fun now. Yeah let's line them up. Let's get right next to that pole. We'll drag it out. Okay guys so in our drag race we found an issue with the drive is we, well we have it installed but on either side of the drive there's two screws that screw in and hold against the shaft. Those screws weren't tight. We didn't check that before we installed it so because of the play it kind of bent the shear pin. The kit comes with a second shear pin. We put the new shear pin in and we're going to go test it again. So back in action. Let's go. This time Matt wanted to take the lure so I'll jump in the Titan and film him. All right we're going to line them up here and go for a rematch. Checking the high seat stability. How's it feel way up there? That is cool. You got 10 different points of adjustment so not only forward and backwards but you also have height adjustment on the lure. Okay there you go. How about in the middle? Show me like in the middle. I don't like to recline that much. That's probably pretty, that's like good ergonomics. All right so we're lined up here. Let's do a drag race. On your marks, let's shoot for that Get set, go. That thing's pretty fast. A little 10-foot boat doesn't track super good. Gosh I feel like we're just dead match Matt. Maybe just a little. All right I think the Titan 10-5 might have just a touch more speed. All right let's see it. That is so weird looking. Man look at that thing through a lake. I think you are leaving me. You look awkward as hell. I just can't get over like these boats or at least the lure is slow to paddle but it flies when you're pedaling it. All right um okay so speed I'd say the two are about the same. What did you say? Dude this Titan if you crank the handle it will want to buck you out of the seat. Yeah that Titan turns tight. Let's do a stability test now. Um what should we do? Well just like stand to one side and see how it feels. Try to get both feet on one side of the drive. You know there you go. Does it feel tipsy? Let me get a better shot of your feet here. That's pretty good. I mean that's the lure 11-5. I think it's about 35 inches wide. It's a really stable boat. It's kind of been a gold standard for a while but the Titan that I'm in. Here let me pass this camera off. You just feel like you can flip the rudder 90 degrees. Yeah look at that. Donuts. Even talk about stability. I'm 225 pounds on my weight on one foot. Impressive. It just sort of like hunkers into a set and you literally I think would fall off or you'd have to put your foot on the gunnel. What other stability? I don't know. It's super easy to get into the front hatch. So it's super easy to get in the front hatch. Out of practice but I mean whatever. You can do headstands on your front hatch even fast while standing up I suppose. All right well stability check. This is probably a five out of five. I'd say the lure is a four out of five. Depending on your size. You know Matt's 180 pounds. 170. But he was able to move around that pretty easily and I think up to like 225-250 lures plenty stable. If you're a bigger guy lots of gear. I mean Titan's where it's at. All right let's do the next test. What do you want to do? Let's just talk about some of the specifics here. I mean let's talk about ergonomics. You've been in both these boats quite a bit. Talk to me about ergonomics. I like with this one that you can actually lean back a little bit for a leisure cruise. Just because that one you have to drop the seat back but this one the seat kind of raises just a little bit. As far as just the boats in general I really like the seat in the native just because it does have a little bit of a higher back but both are great seats just depending on what you like. The pedals I mean neither of them take much effort to pedal. You get moving pretty good. Yeah. So as far as ergonomics go on the Titan you feel like you sit really high in this chair and the boat feels really deep. When you're pedaling your hips feel lower than your feet which is a nice feel. You can get that in the lure too but this just feels even more confident I would say in that upper position. The backrest is a little taller. One thing I do feel like I'm slouching forward a little bit in the lure. I felt like I had more support underneath my butt but all in all I would say I mean it feels really good. I like the Titan 10.5 a lot. It'll probably probably do better than the 13.5. Oh yeah. As far as little things in ergonomics I like the foot pedals on the lure much better. They're wider broader and so they just feel like your feet fit on there. You don't want to flop off but that's easy enough to fix. You can buy an aftermarket pedal anywhere. So kind of standard lure rudder. Go ahead and use a turn toggle to steer. You're kind of sideways. There you go. Sweet. So it's deployable. It doesn't turn quite as sharp but it still turns really really well. Better than any other pedal drive up until the Titans but the Titans kind of set new standards. The fact that you can still pedal this or paddle this boat. It's a paddle kayak that you can add a pedal drive to. It's pretty sweet. Last thing is price difference. $21.99 for the boat Matt's in with the pedal drive with the rudder hand control. It does have the ability to take a motor. $24.99 for the Titan 10.5 that I'm in. I don't know you guys. If it was up to me it would be a tough one. I think this boat offers more versatility. This boat if you're like a tournament angler or you just want a paddle kayak, pedal kayak, I'd go Titan. You want something you're going to drift rivers in and do other stuff, I'd go lure. And the other thing is with this 11.5 is I would take this to the coast drop the seat down and I'd pedal this in the ocean fine where in the high seat there and just with the short stubby boat I probably wouldn't want to take that to coast. Yeah and lure 13.5 is probably going to be better yeah. Definitely. I mean this doesn't have much water line so you know it splits the water and reconnects the water fairly short. A 13.5 having more water line is going to give the boat more speed. Watch this you guys. I want to turn turn it 90 degrees. If you just give it a couple back kicks with the rudder turn this thing turns basically in a circle inside of itself. The back end just drifts around. Here we go. You can literally feel like you're going to throw yourself over the side from jeep horses. Look at that. 360. Pressuring. You're just barely cranking. I mean it's not much pressure at all. It's amazing how easy this thing is to go. Especially for how wide it is. It's I don't know almost 40 inches wide or so. Yeah dexterity on this thing's unreal. Yeah just drift. Tokyo drift. With the boondocks you even have more control. I almost feel like the little rudder you get all this mass moving and it's hard to get it back in line. The boondocks rudder just has so much more grip. Definitely could be the first thing I upgrade is that that longer stiffer rudder. So just comparing it. Tried to get some flip around footage of the lure as well. Osprey with a fish. That's so sweet. Yeah. See it hanging from his foot? Isn't it really solid? I'd say it's a little bit louder. They do tell me that over time it's going to break in and get even smoother. But it doesn't feel hard to pedal at all. It feels like Matt and I are just cruising side by side. I think I like the ergonomics of this a little bit better. I like the way the seat kind of contours underneath your butt. So let's go do our key points that we wanted to hit today. Speed one out of five. How would you rate that Titan 10.5? Hobie Rebo. So he's saying three out of five on Titan. I would say three out of five on this one too. Yeah super comparable. Maneuverability we kind of already touched on that. Titan five out of five. That thing's insane. This one I'd still give it a four out of five. It's really good. It's not as perfect as that. That thing's mind-blowing. Let's see maneuverability, speed, stability. Yeah Titan I'd say takes it. Five out of five again on stability. It's so ridiculous. Four out of five. Versatility. I would say feel free. Yeah you'd have to give it to the feel free for sure. I'd say versatility out of one kayak. I don't think there's a more versatile kayak on the market. If you guys disagree leave it in the comments. I know there's a lot of cool boats out these days but the ability to have a paddle kayak that you already own perhaps that you can float rivers in but you can also add a pedal drive too. It's pretty unique. So I'm going to go ahead and give this a five out of five. Yeah I'd say on the Titan three out of five. It's kind of a one but what it does it does so good. Like better than any other kayak I've ever paddled. Yeah it's meant for tournament fishermen. It's meant for bass fishermen. A lot of gear. You have a lot of space. It's super stable so you can stand up and force fish out of heavy cover and I mean you're not going to flip it. You might fall out of it if you're a little unsteady but you're not going to flip it. Yeah so each boat has its own place. You guys this was a blast for us to get to test. As always you can come out here and you know try them out. Give us your own review but it's cool to have some neat options in the shop and again every boat we sell we keep in the demo fleet. Is there anything else? Oh fit and finish. That was the last criteria. Overall fit and finish of these two boats. What do you mean? One out of five. Oh. Like how everything goes. How the drives feel. How everything's laid out. The quality of the boat. This one's kind of meant to do one thing and it does it well and it's set up perfect for it. That one's kind of more versatile but I mean it feels good. It moves well and yeah I think it feels good too. Overall quality. I mean it feels really good. The drive is a retrofit. I'd say it does feel a little bit of retrofitting. I mean this one feels meant for it. Yeah meant for it. When I say that the handle it works well. It looks a little more grindy than the native. Yeah. I'd give it maybe a three and a half or four out of five. Okay. Just because of that. So three four and four. I would say four on the Titan. I feel like yeah there's still things that could have been a little bit stouter. On the Titan? Yeah you know the seat's a little creaky. The pedal drive is good but it's a little bit of play. I think there's a little room for improvement but not much. It's really really good. You got to give it to the native propel drive. That thing's been out forever. It's pretty flawless man. We've sold hundreds of them. We've serviced a bunch and spot on. The feel-free drive feels awesome but you know time will tell. We did have that issue with the shear pin. I think it was from the manufacturer as a defect with the two pinch bolts not being tight enough. Time will tell. So you guys this is our initial thoughts. We thank you so much for watching. Anything else you want to add Matt? Go follow us on Instagram and Facebook. Check out our YouTube. At Headwaters Kayak Shop. At Matt underscore Mandu. Dan Arbuckle. That's it from us you guys. Thanks for watching. Be sure to subscribe, comment, like, and share with your friends. We'll see you on the next one. There is one difference it's tough to ignore. The wheel and the keel. One guy moving a boat two men and a small boy