Tandem River Paddling and Touring in Your W Kayak
The W kayak can carry two adult passengers onboard, providing none of them is very big.
In these pictures the guy is 6 ft 200 lbs, and the girl is 5’5″ and weighs 135 lb. That’s about the maximum passenger load this boat would take and still perform reasonably well.
To begin with, it’s important to stress the fact that tandem is an ‘advanced’ application, which means both paddlers are required to be experienced in solo W kayaking before they go paddling it in tandem.
The secret to successful tandem paddling is having each paddler perform his / her role: The front paddler should paddle as regularly as possible (e.g. left-right), and the back paddler, who’s in fact the ‘skipper’ should follow the movement of the front paddle with his own paddle while trying to keep the paddles parallel to each other in order to prevent them from colliding.
The paddler in the back is also the one who’s more responsible for tracking and steering, and should try to do it without losing power and momentum, that is while applying different strokes of varying power. Sharp turns should be done together.
Tags: river, tandem kayaking, touring
June 7th, 2008 at
Couple questions:
How heavy can the paddlers be, and what about both paddling standing?
Bill
June 7th, 2008 at
I’ve paddled this boat with passengers heavier than myself (I weigh 200 lbs).
Having said that, I wouldn’t recommend doing so because you have to be really good and really know what you’re doing.
Same thing for tandem standup paddling – It’s possible but not recommended unless you’re very experienced with the W.
June 11th, 2008 at
How do I go about getting a price list and where do we purchase…
June 11th, 2008 at
You can go to our website http://www.wavewalk.com and click the ‘Kayaks’ page:’ http://www.wavewalk.com/W_Fishing_Kayak_Product_Information.html
We sell directly to customers.