K2’s Luv Boat 108 had only been afloat for a year when it was scuttled and replaced with the Luv Boat 105, a modestly modified spin-off of the Pinnacle 105, itself only a year out of R&D. K2’s merger of the women’s specific Luv Boat 108 with the unisex Pinnacle 105 was inevitable, as the raison d’être of the Pinnacle was to pare away as much weight as possible without impairing performance, a women’s market mission if ever there was one.

The new Luv Boat won’t displace quite as much snow, but it will also move side to side with greater facility, more like a surfboard and less like a 7-deck cruise ship. K2’s new Konic construction is most aptly applied to powder and whatever’s left when powder’s been chowdered. The Luv Boat 105 retains a thread of Titanal around its perimeter, calming the jitters that crud can induce and lending an extra dose of stability on those seemingly endless series of run-outs, roads and traverses that connect the best powder stash with the closest uphill conveyance.