Motorised kayak builds keep getting more serious, and Jason Reardon Kayaking's latest unboxing puts another flagship rig on the workbench. The Newport NK180HD heavy-duty trolling motor, a LiTime 24 V 50 Ah lithium battery, a Wizard wheel-style steering system and a custom stern plate are all destined for his ongoing Bonafide RVR119 build series.
Reardon, recovering from eye surgery and filming with dark glasses on, drove up to Big Adventures in Fletcher, North Carolina with his daughter behind the wheel to collect the parcel. "Hey, what's going on all you cool and groovy kayakers? This is Jason with Jason Reardon Kayaking," he opened from the showroom with the crate in shot.
The NK180HD anchors the build. Newport's heavy-duty kayak motor runs on 24 V and is being paired with a LiTime 24 V 50 Ah lithium battery - a deal Reardon flagged from the start. "You guys know I recently partnered with LiTime Batteries," he said. "On that partnership, they were able to send me out a 24-volt 50 amp battery. It's going to work with this Newport motor."
Around the motor he is layering a Wizard wheel steering setup - chosen over a tiller for finer control while casting - and a custom stern plate that joins the NK180HD to the kayak's rear deck. The plate came courtesy of fellow YouTuber Mark Bivvens. "A good buddy of mine, Mark Bivvens, picked that up," Reardon said. "If you guys aren't familiar with Mark, he's got a really great YouTube channel called Mark Bivvens Outdoor. He's catching some big freaking donkeys on that channel."
The kayak underneath all of it is one of the newer river-focused hulls on the US market. The Bonafide RVR119 is built for moving water more than open lakes, and Reardon's channel has already documented a full hull build for it - including a custom trailer - before the current motor-and-battery phase. The latest stage is about range, hands-free trolling and the ability to hold a position in current while working structure.
"This new build series is going to be adding motor and battery to the kayak," Reardon told viewers as he walked through the layout on the workshop floor. "So I've laid everything out here today to kind of give you an overview of what we're going to be installing here, including this stern plate."
For the Australian kayak fishing audience, the relevance is two-fold. The NK180HD's 24 V power paired with lithium is the same combination that has started showing up on bass kayak rigs in Queensland and northern New South Wales, where impoundments and slow rivers make a trolling motor genuinely useful. And the Wizard-style wheel steering converts a kayak into something close to a micro skiff - the kind of platform that pulls flathead off Sydney's bays or chases jacks deep into mangrove country in the Far North.
Reardon framed the unboxing as the start of a full install series, with stern plate fitment, steering linkage, lithium wiring and on-water testing to come. For anyone building toward a serious motorised kayak setup, the parts list he confirmed is the most current public template: Newport NK180HD, LiTime 24 V 50 Ah lithium, Wizard wheel steering, and a custom stern plate mating it all to the Bonafide RVR119.