We made it to the lake and recorded some video. This is the first time the wife or I have attempted using the video feature of her Nikon camera.
I hope you can see that using the oars is quite easy and the kayak tracks extremely well. I also like the control that you have with the oars, you can make position adjustments using one oar without putting down your fishing rod. The oars that I am currently using are aluminum 6 1/2 ft. I tried a pair of 5 ft wooden oars and they didn’t work as well for me.
You really get some weird comments from others who have never seen a kayak like this one – some good some not so good. My reaction to those who don’t like it is that – it is different strokes for different folks.
This was the first time my wife had ever been in a kayak and it has been many years since she has been a row boat of any type. She felt very comfortable and did not find the kayak to be unstable.
She had no trouble getting in or out of the kayak and says that it would be great exercise. All of this coming from a woman who will be 62 in Sept. I think that says a lot about your product.
Dave
<< Read Dave’s initial W kayak review
Dave,
Impressive! Your design works perfectly -
The boat moves elegantly, and maneuvering looks very easy and efficient.
It’s also a step forward from Wayne’s initial rowing W300 design, because you don’t use outriggers.
Yoav
Those oars work quite well and the boat appears to move along nicely. Great job!
Nice! The oars look lightweight, and easy to use, and it doesn’t look like you’d ever lose them…
Pete
It’s one thing to see a picture, and a totally different thing to watch a movie – thanks–
This is a well leveled, well balanced boat that glides well, and is visibly easy to control and turn – a pleasure to watch!
Very nice job.
I’d always thought that rowing was hard, but Dave’s movies make it look easy.
Graham R
Very impressive rowing rig! Also looked very fast. I’d love to see a race between an oar rigged W like Dave’s versus a paddled version. I’d put my money on Dave’s oar rig!
John Z
Interesting question, and from what I read the jury is still out when it comes to deciding which is faster – rowing or paddling.
Dave’s rowing W500 moves gracefully, but it’s hard to tell if goes faster than if he paddled it, and this is why:
The oars offer Dave to use much more muscle power than a paddle does, because he can push hard with his legs, and put into action all the muscles in his back. However, the intervals between oar strokes are longer than the intervals between paddle strokes, which means there’s a greater deceleration, I.E. loss of kinetic energy (momentum) per oar stroke, and therefore Dave needs to accelerate more each time he dips the oars in the water, and that requires a bigger effort from him than the effort of making shorter, faster and weaker paddle strokes.
Yoav
Simply put, rowing has the advantage of being more powerful, and paddling has the advantage of being more continuous.
KW
Awesome!!!
Now that’s two wave walk yaks with oars added.
First the W300 now the W500.
Paddle safe all
Rox
Rox,
Actually, there’s a couple more W out there with oars but I never got pictures of them.
I’m still hoping…
Yoav
A couple of observations:
The oars sockets are located too low in relation to where you’re sitting. As one leans back the best leverage is applied by pulling one’s arms towards the chest. In the video, arms are being pulled toward the waist.
Still there is some tendency to pull the arms up higher than the waist, and this is resulting in the oar blades inefficiently going too deep into the water.
Struts raising the oar pivot points by approximately six inches would work wonders, IMHO.
Re: Comments by Tim C.. Tks for the comments, and from an ergonomic and engineering perspective you may be right. I started with 5 ft oars and the angle from pivot point to water caused a lot of wasted motion in the oar stroke going way to deep with the oar grips near my chin (not a good situation) which caused me to damage two yokes. I now use 6 1/2 ft oars which provides me with a much better angle and less wasted motion. Sometime this fall or winter I am going to change the setup I have to add 6 to 8 inches in width to each side. I believe the added width will give me additional leverage thus better control of the kayak.
For my primary application of river fishing where it is quite swift and rocky, I feel that leverage and kayak control is more important than the exact angle that I am pulling the oars at. Point being, the higher the pivot point the longer the oar must be and the longer the oar, the more distance you need between the pivot point and your hands to obtain maximum leverage. Also, displacement makes a huge difference in the water to pivot point height which effects ones ability row with maximum efficiency.
All of that being said – it is all about what works for the individual user.
Dave,
I see what you mean. I think the Wavewalk has a lot of promise as a rowboat. It looks like you can’t sit any deeper into the hull, so maybe just a 2″ inch block added on top of the blocks you already have for the oar sockets. If there was some convenient way you could try the same oars raised just a few inches higher, I think you’d find a benificial difference in the way she rowed.
Tim C.
Once you get this perfected, What would you say to making someone like me a rig? I’m 58 and very out of shape and weigh in at 254 lbs. Dr says I need exercise and I can’t think of a better way than being out on the water. Thanks. Frankie P.
Frankie,
Rowing isn’t necessarily the only solution for you. Paddling is a good exercise too, if you do it in a W kayak, and not in a regular kayak that forces you to paddle in the L position.
If you insist on rowing, Jim Luckett from SailsBoatsToGo offers a rowing kit that’s compatible with the W500 kayak >>
Yoav