Jon Petter Thorsen
joins the team.

If you have spent any time looking at Edge Kayak photography, you have already seen Jon Petter Thorsen's work — the low-water silhouettes at golden hour, the spray catching the last of the light. Jon Petter is a paddler first and a photographer right alongside it, and he has now joined the Edge team. Most of the frames in this very post are his.

One of the first things Jon Petter did was design his own boat. He took the kayak designer and built an orange Alnes Ocean — warm deck, clean white hull — a colourway that reads beautifully against grey water and low northern light. It has become something of a signature.

Jon Petter is no newcomer — across a long life of kayak enthusiasm he has put all of our prototypes through their paces: flat days and rough ones, summer skerries and cold winter loadouts on the roof rack. That kind of mileage across iterations is exactly what shapes a hull, and his feedback has gone straight back into the boat.

"I'm not a hardcore kayak surfer," Jon Petter is the first to admit. "But I love dynamic water — clapotis off the rocks, a following sea, working on technique. And for that, the Edge Alnes is exceptional." It is a telling endorsement: the boat earns its place not just in the surf zone, but in the everyday play that most paddlers actually seek out.

"I have owned about ten kayaks over a long life of kayak enthusiasm, and this is the most versatile, playful and fun kayak I have paddled," Jon Petter says. "It's easy to handle, and it fits a wide range of paddlers — you don't need to be an expert white-water kayaker to own this boat. And it will definitely boost your skill level."

His verdict: a manoeuvrable, stable kayak that takes you to the next level — even if you never see yourself in large surfing waves. Coming from someone who has tested every version and photographed it in every light, that is about as honest a review as the Alnes could ask for. Welcome to the team, Jon Petter.