The Second Raft of Otters
I am excited to announce that the second raft of Otter’s is releasing this upcoming Saturday, December 10th exclusively at CLYW.ca.
After the first raft of Otter’s sold-out in less than 3 minutes just a little over a year ago, Steve, Jeff, and I knew we had a great design in our hands.
Check out the first Medium Article I wrote on designing the Otter here
Why the delay?
When manufacturing the first raft of Otter’s, we encountered a handful of hiccups. Not only did a global pandemic slow us down, but the design itself made it challenging for our manufacturers to make with a high number of b-grades (or Fool’s Golds as we’d call it). Going into the second raft, we knew we had to make some minor changes to the design to improve production consistency, but we also saw this as an opportunity to iterate based on the feedback we received.
Feedback
The feedback from the first raft of Otter’s was overall super positive. Players were happy with the design, but more importantly, it fulfilled a niche in the market: a competition-grade undersized yo-yo.
Checkout this awesome, field test review video done by Braydon for his thoughts on the Otter
But, there were still some issues. The Otter was ever-so-slightly too heavy making it difficult to maneuver, and the Otter would sometimes have issues with binding, especially at the end long combos. From this feedback and from the feedback from our manufacturer, Jeffrey and I went back to the drawing board to create yet another prototype (what I am calling Otter 1.5). We made it slightly lighter, improved the response gap, and made a handful of other minor changes here and there!
Here is the Otter 1.5 in beautiful forest green. Sorry, this one is not going to be releasing
After play-testing it for a few months, we were ready to start producing a second raft. But, with the backlog of other CLYW designs and designs from other yo-yo brands, paired with the backdrop of the pandemic, it, unfortunately, resulted in a lengthy delay.
But, this didn’t stop us from creating! Last year, I went on a spontaneous trip to Los Angeles to catch up with my good friend Coleman Weimer. Together, we filmed Trails — a promo video for the Otter, which is a compilation of tricks that I have developed since I started playing over 11 years ago showcasing the various twist and turns my process has taken.
The Drop
The Otter will drop in four solids colorways at CLYW on December 10th at 11AM EST, with a raft of splashed Otters soon to come!
A kin to the first run, a portion of the Otter sales will go towards Oceanwise whose mission is to protect, conserve, and restore the world’s oceans. You can read more about Oceanwise here!
