Wavewalk Kayaks

Raising the Bar in Kayak Design and Performance:
New Standards For The Third Millennium

This article discusses the changes in kayak design, usage and performance over the past century and in recent years.

Part 2
Design and Manufacturing

3. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

There is a major difference between native kayaks and modern kayaks in their basic built: Native kayaks had a rigid, internal wooden frame covered with a ’skin’. Such design is no longer in use except for folding kayaks, and nearly all other modern kayaks have an external, rigid skeleton (’shell’) that serves a dual purpose and acts as the kayak’s ’skin’ as well. The introduction of this non-ribbed, simpler design was key in the proliferation of new, mass-produced, low cost and durable kayaks.

Customers’ preferred kayaking activity is of critical importance for the designer since modern monohull kayak models are designed for one activity, or a narrow range of activities. The main activity categories are: Whitewater, Touring, ‘Recreational’ and lately Fishing too.
The whitewater kayak is very short and designed to offer maximum maneuverability. Similar designs are used for kayak surfing.
The Touring kayak design is usually narrow and long, and within this family of designs the sea kayak is longer and narrower. Touring kayaks are faster than other kayak categories.
Recreational kayaks constitute the bulk of the market today, and they are characterized by their higher stability due to their wider beam. These kayaks are seldom outfitted with a spray skirt because it is assumed that most paddlers can’t roll their kayaks.
Fishing kayaks are basically stabler recreational kayak designs accessorized for fishing that are sold within a higher price bracket. The reason this article mentions the fishing kayak as a separate category is that in recent years kayak fishing is growing in popularity, which reflects people’s tendency to prefer stabler models.

All monohull kayak designs except whitewater kayaks can be outfitted with a rudder system, and they often are since regardless of their type they all have tracking problems.

Another factor that kayak designers bring into consideration is the customers’ personal liking in terms of fashion. This goes to colors, materials, forms and accessories.

And last but not least, designers and manufactures need to produce products that fit their customers’ spending intentions and capabilities. There is no point in offering a cheap and durable Polyethylene kayak to a customer who has already decided to spend more on an expensive yet less durable kayak made from another plastic material reinforced with carbon-fiber or fiberglass (FRP, also called composite plastics)

4. SIT-ON-TOP (SOT) KAYAKS
Technically speaking, sit-on-top (SOT) kayaks further depart from native designs, as they can no longer be considered as vessels because they don’t feature a hollow compartment for the passenger/s. These modern kayaks evolved from paddleboards in the past four decades, and their general form is that of a flat board equipped with a seat and small depressions for the passengers’ heels. SOTs have become widely accepted as kayaks since they feature the essential characteristics of modern monohull kayaks (I.E. seat, feet support and double-blade paddle), and they are used for similar recreational activities. There are only few eccentrics left who still think of SOTs as being anything other than kayaks.

5. ‘RECREATIONAL VS. ‘TOURING’ KAYAKS
The dictionary defines Recreation as “Refreshment of one’s mind or body through activity that amuses or stimulates; play”. The dictionary also defines Touring as “Travel, as on a bicycle or on skis, for pleasure rather than competition.”
In this sense, all Touring kayak models are recreational in a broad sense since kayak touring itself is a recreational activity.
That is to say that the distinction between ‘Recreational’ and ‘Touring’ kayaks may be related to certain design characteristics such as width and length, but it is also related to marketing considerations - a process known as ’segmentation’.


Raising the Bar in Kayak Design and Performance:

New Standards For the Third Millennium

This article discusses the changes in kayak design, usage and performance over the past century and in recent years.

Part I

Traditional vs. Modern Kayaking - From Survival and Utilitarian Use to Recreational Applications

2. A BRIEF HISTORY OF KAYAKING AS A SET OF RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES

The first popular recreational human-powered boats in North America were round or flat bottom or canoes, skiffs and dinghies propelled by oars or by single-blade (I.E. ‘canoe’) paddles. As the twentieth century progressed people enjoyed more free time, canoe paddles gradually became more popular than oars, and canoing became a widely practiced recreational activity.
Canoing was practiced in combination with fishing, tripping and camping or by itself, and it was performed mostly inland - on fresh water.
After WWII the American public became gradually acquainted with kayaks, but kayaking as a popular set of recreational applications became commercially viable in the early seventies, after manufacturers found ways to use rotational molding for making low cost, durable Polyethylene kayaks.
Around that time some improvements introduced to paddleboards gave birth to the modern sit-on-top (SOT) kayak, which has gradually become very popular in a wide variety of kayaking applications performed mainly in warm climates.
During those decades American society’s focus shifted towards the individual, and the kayak fitted the new trend better than the canoe since solo kayaking required less skill and experience than solo canoeing.
Today, in the beginning of the twenty first century, there are some three hundred thousand kayaks produced in North America annually, of which about one hundred thousand are SOTs. There are also one hundred thousand canoes produced every year.
Most contemporary kayaks are rotationally molded from Polyethylene, which is a durable, reliable and relatively inexpensive material compared to hand-laid fiber-reinforced plastics (FRP a.k.a. ‘composites’) used in smaller production series. Inflatable, canvas (folding) and wooden kayaks are made in limited numbers as well.
Modern kayakers use their kayaks in a much wider range of environments and applications than native kayakers did, and manufacturers offer an increasingly wider range of kayak designs and models.

Fishing from kayaks is becoming popular in recent years, mainly in the sunshine belt states where it is practical to use SOT kayaks. It is considerably less popular in colder climates.

Raising the Bar in Kayak Design and Performance:

New Standards For the Third Millennium

This article discusses the changes in kayak design, usage and performance over the past century and in recent years.

Part 1

Traditional vs. Modern Kayaking - From Survival and Utilitarian Use to Recreational Applications

1. THE ORIGINS OF MODERN KAYAKS

In the beginning of the twentieth century kayaks were practically unknown to the wide public. They were self designed, hand made personal paddling boats used by native people of the Arctic and Sub-Arctic regions, in Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Siberia, mainly for hunting marine and land animals.
These peoples seldom fished from their kayaks and hardly ever used them for recreation. They preferred to paddle their kayaks in protected waters such as rivers, estuaries and bays, and they neither surfed nor went in whitewater. They obviously didn’t paddle standing in their kayaks - although they sometime did so in their Umiaks, which were bigger and wider, multi-passenger canoes.
Native kayaks were not uniform: some were narrow and some not, and while some were over 20 feet long others could be half that length. The common building technique used then is known as ’skin on frame’: The builder covered an internal wooden skeleton-like structure with animal skins.
None of those traditional kayaks ever featured a rudder or a seat, or even a backrest, which are all modern additions aimed at solving problems that are characteristic to present days kayakers.
The native people who used narrow kayaks often relied on the ‘Eskimo Roll’ for recovery, but not always. Some researchers assume that rolling the kayak was practically the only means of survival available to these people who didn’t have lightweight watertight suits, because swimming in extremely cold water while wearing heavy fur clothes is a recipe for disaster, and many native people didn’t know how to swim.
The wider native kayaks were designed to offer more stability and thereby provide safety through capsize prevention rather than recovery.
A much less known prehistoric personal paddle craft is the Caballito de Totora (’Reed Pony’ in Spanish) used by Pre-Columbian fishermen on the Pacific coast of South America. Like the Inuit kayak, this sit-on-top reed watercraft is paddled with a double blade paddle. Its paddleboard design is very much reminding of modern sit-on-top (SOT) kayaks, except for its higher bow designed to go over big waves.
There are similar designs in other ancient cultures around he world as well.

Next Chapter >> 2. A Brief History of Kayaking as a Set of Recreational Activities

While the advantages of fishing standing are pretty obvious to most fishermen many who haven’t tried the W Riding (mounted) position may wonder what’s so special about it, and why it is considered so advantageous when compared to the traditional L kayaking position or to fishing seated in a canoe.

The answer is that it has to do with how much support you have for your casting and reeling-in efforts, as well as when you’re fighting a strong fish:
The result of every physical effort you make, whether it’s jumping, running, pulling or throwing something depends on the kind of support your body gets from the ground you stand on. Soft, slippery or shaky ground doesn’t offer you good enough resistance.
Similarly, fishing from a big boat enables better physical performance than fishing from a small, unstable one: You can cast to longer distances and fight bigger fish more easily.
Riding the saddle of a W kayak doesn’t offer you as much stability, support and confidence as the deck of a big bass boat, but it certainly gives your legs more support than a sit-in or SOT kayak does, and through your legs you get more support and power for your arms and upper body.
Imagine riding a pony, which is similar to riding a W kayak saddle: The horse rider can gallop and jump hurdles, throw a spear or shoot arrows like ancient warriors used to do, or a lasso like modern days cowboys still do, and so on. -Now try to imagine all this being done when the rider sits on the horse’s saddle in the traditional L kayaking position… It’s practically impossible because the rider lacks stability and sufficient support from his legs.
Like any analogy this one is not perfect but it’s close to the truth: The combination of having two hulls on the W kayak’s sides and riding the saddle that you mount in a posture that’s advantageous from a biomechanical standpoint changes everything when you fish.

As Jeff McGovern puts it: -”I would venture to say the W offers improved casting with any gear. From the riding position, I get more power with my casting and spinning because I can put my whole body into the cast and use my legs. The solid feel of the boat gives you a great sense of security. ” (Read More)

This is Jo Mares’ DIY newly camouflaged W fishing kayak.

Jo is a professional boat designer and manufacturer who lives and works in Key West, Florida.

You can read what Jo has to say about his W fishing kayak here: http://www.wavewalk.com/Kayak_Review_01.html

Kayakers call this type of accident ‘Entrapment’ (which in regular English is a juridical term…)
However, in the world of kayaking entrapment is described as a situation where the paddler’s lower body, or a part of it (E.G. leg, foot) is caught inside the hull while the kayaker is trying to retrieve it from there during a ‘wet exit’, that is while attempting to leave his or her kayak and swim.
Imagine yourself in turbulent water, your kayak overturned, you’ve been ‘pumped out’ of it (by gravity) or you’re just trying to perform a ‘wet exit’ - and you’re ‘entrapped’.
It’s not merely a stupid situation - it’s actually a very dangerous one.

How can such thing happen?
It’s a fact: Whitewater, sea and surf kayakers who paddle monohull sit-in kayaks (SIK) attach themselves to their boats with a watertight accessory called ’spray skirt’. This garment is made from strong fabric, usually Neoprene reinforced with  rubber, and it’s tightly secured both to the kayak as well as to the paddler’s body by various mechanical means in order to prevent water from leaking in, or the skirt coming out of its place. Being well secured is especially important during a recovery maneuver that such SIK kayakers perform called ‘Eskimo Roll’ - when their kayak is upside down.

As in other outdoor sports the rule of thumb in kayaking is ‘Stuff Happens’. Since kayaking accidents are by definition events characterized by the reduced control the kayaker has over what’s going on, it can happen that SIK kayakers remain attached to their kayaks against their will, I.E. they are ‘entrapped’ inside to some degree.
Such situations are particularly hazardous if the accident occurs in turbulent water (E.G. big surf) and ‘rock gardens’ (beaches with underwater rocks), which is often the case.

Why am I talking about this?
W Kayaks are not equipped with such spray skirts, and W kayakers don’t perform Eskimo Rolls, and so far no one has ever reported any W Kayak accident involving any degree of ‘entrapment’.
Nevertheless, I feel it’s important to explain this issue and discuss it because it highlights the necessity for accelerating the paradigm shift in paddlesports safety: Most paddlers today wouldn’t even consider using kayaks equipped with spray skirts anymore, and they have chosen to paddle stabler kayaks rather than ones requiring paddlers to have a ‘Bomb Proof Eskimo Roll’ (I.E. 100% reliable under all circumstances).  In other words, people have generally voted against those sit-in monohull kayaks (SIK) that demand a high level of expertise in this overrated recovery maneuver that too few people can actually depend on.  The problem is that too many kayakers out there still use that type of spray skirt without possessing a ‘Bomb Proof Eskimo Roll’, and by that are exposing themselves to the danger of being ‘entrapped’ in their kayaks.

John Forney is a boat designer and builder from Texas.

He has already designed and built a number of kayaks, both in wood and skin-on-frame.

John took upon himself to be the first to design and build a wooden W boat, and he did it.

This W is 12 feet long and 30 inches wide, and it can take two large size kayak fishermen with all their gear, as well as camping gear:

Bennett Crow christening John’s W boat.  Photo: John Forney.

John says: “It’s a known thing that you build your first boat just to learn and then you throw it away, but this boat is just too good to throw - it’s amazing.”

John is now involved in building two more wooden W boats, and he plans to design and build W boats in other materials as well.

Yoav

Some people think the name W Kayak is an abbreviation of Wavewalk kayaks. In a way it’s true, but there is also another source:
It is common for letters of the alphabet to be used to label different types of hull. For example, a V hull is one whose cross section looks like the letter V, and a U hull is one whose cross section looks like the letter U. The latter form is popular in canoe and kayak design. A new type of multihull design features M hulls.

Similarly, if you looked at a cross section of a W boat you would see a form reminding of the letter W, or more precisely a ‘Double U’ since the bottom of each of the W twin hulls is flat, I.E. more shaped like a U than a V.
When looking at the wake the W Kayak leaves behind its twin hulls the W shape can be easily perceived.
In fact, our W logo is shaped in a way that can be seen either as a wake or flat water or the crest of a wave - depending on how you choose to interpret it.

Yoav

Photo: Scott Floyd

Kayaking magazines are filled with pictures of kayakers touring glacier lakes and other inhospitably cold locations, as if such images reflected the common reality of paddling, or even what most kayakers aspire to do.

But when it comes to kayak fishing, magazines and websites seldom feature reports from cold places, and this is because kayak fishing is first and foremost a sunshine belt phenomenon. It doesn’t mean that you won’t find kayak fishermen in places like New Jersey, Puget Sound or Cape Cod, but the big numbers aren’t there, and the activity is restricted to the hottest months of the year, roughly between June and September – even if the water is navigable and fishable.

This is because a traditional kayak is basically a boat stripped down to its minimum, and one may argue that a SOT kayak is not even a vessel but more of a styled paddleboard (well, historically that would be correct).

That is to say that fishing from such a platform is not as easy and comfortable as fishing from a bigger boat is, and the little stability offered in combination with the extreme proximity of the cold water and the total exposure to wind and rain make the whole idea of kayak fishing considerably less appealing to the northern fisherman.

It was a Jeff McGovern who had first explained to me that the W kayak would be the perfect solution for northern kayak fishing. Although he’s a Floridian Jeff grew up in the Midwest and goes fishing in Canada every year.

And he was right: Looking back at 2007 we could see that although Florida and Texas were still the biggest states as far as W kayak fishing is concerned, northern states became as important in this aspect – coast to coast.

For those of you who want to read more, here are some northern W kayak fishermen’s stories:

Oregon, Wisconsin (fly fisherman), Massachusetts (Cape Cod), Connecticut, , Minnesota (hunter & fisherman),

It’s been weeks since I went out paddling.
We saw several snow storms in December with unusually cold weather in between, and January in has been cold as you’d expect it to be in Massachusetts around this time of the year.

Well, at least other people are having fun with their W kayaks, like Sean C from Florida who seems to enjoy his new 2008 model.

Watch out for those alligators Sean!

Jeff McGovern is a master kayak fisherman and W kayak fishing trailblazer from Palatka, Florida.

Here is what Jeff recently wrote me:

“In the W kayak I find myself poking the boat into grassy areas since the grass coming up between the hulls will hold it in place. With the slightly additional height the angler is at casting over the grass is easy. Also you don’t catch grass on the back cast as you would in a lower boat.
I’ve fished the same areas out of a SOT and the W the last few months, and there are distinct advantages to both designs at certain times. At a higher tide the W can creep into the grass areas where the SOT would be surrounded by grass making a cast impossible.
Also with moving forward in on the saddle the W becomes a pivot point so a larger fish has a tough time of getting on the wrong side of your efforts. In most other kayaks that concern is addressed with a longer rod to clear both ends of the boat but that is still harder.
As you look toward newer W models I’m wondering if raising the saddle a bit would be nicer for big guys like me.
Those little trashcans I use pushed in the hulls are pretty handy.
One other thing about the W that comes up is the ease of dragging it on the ground. For short beach launches or for areas like the fish camp where I normally launch the W proves almost effortless. Other kayakers have mentioned how simple the W is to handle - I really only have to pick it up once at home to load it and then once more when I get back to put it away. At virtually all my launching spots all I do is pull it off the back of the Ranger and onto the ground. Once I place the rods in the rack I can drag the whole thing to the water and be off. Other kayak fishermen who use SOTs are either waiting for assistance or making multiple trips to the water. Jeff”

BTW, Jeff writes articles on fishing in general and kayak fishing in particular: http://www.wavewalk.com/kayak_fishing_with_Jeff.html

In a nutshell, the speed of this 25″ wide, 124″ long W kayak is comparable to that of 12′-13′ monohull kayaks, depending on their design: Fishing kayaks are normally much wider than other kayaks, and therefore slower.
This figure is the result of many tests we ran over the years, and many paddlers including amateurs, professionals and customers have confirmed it independently.

It’s important to remember that when comparing the speed of two boats you need to be proficient in paddling both of them. For example, it would be plain stupid to ask a canoeist who has never paddled a kayak before to evaluate the speed of a 20′ long racing kayak… Similarly, you don’t expect a sea kayaker to be able to appreciate the speed of a fast canoe if he or she has no canoing experience at all.
Therefore, before you try to check how fast your W kayak can go you have to spend the time necessary to become a proficient W paddler, and that can’t happen in a day since W canoing is somehow different from regular canoing, and W kayaking is very different from regular kayaking.
Expect the expectable: There’s a learning curve in this process, as there is one for any new activity you’re undertaking.

Note that the smaller the boat the harder it’s penalized for extra weight - Don’t overload your W kayak.

In case you want to join a group of experienced sea kayakers on a trip you should know that fast touring kayaks are narrow and usually over 16′ long, which means they are likely to go faster than your 10′ W.

This is a link to a long technical article on this subject: http://www.wavewalk.com/KAYAK_SPEED_ARTICLE.html

Yoav

A kayak is a small, personal boat designed for passengers to propel it with double blade paddles.

This definition satisfies hundreds of manufacturers and millions of people who enjoy using their sit-on-top (SOT) or sit-in, inflatable, folding or rigid, monohull, tunnel hull, outrigger or twinhull kayaks.
It would seem too inclusive for a small group of kayakers who believe that only kayaks designed to look like modern versions of the traditional Inuit boats are ‘real’ kayaks, but since this outdated view is becoming a rarity I’d rather not elaborate on it in this post*

Is the W really a kayak?
Well, as long as most people call it a kayak it is one, although it performs perfectly as a canoe**
However, people who call it a catamaran would not be wrong, and neither would those who see in it a new class of boats.

It is correct to call this boat a kayak since it covers a range of typical kayaking applications such as kayak touring, kayak fishing and kayak surfing.
However, it’s also used for other, new applications such as standup paddling, standup kayak surfing and standup kayak fishing, and it offers a new position called Riding (or ‘Mounted’) so it represents a new class of boats.
This new boat class that we call W is based on a patented technology explained in and protected by a U.S. utility patent. Being granted a utility patent means that it is recognized to be a new invention in the full sense of the word and not just another original boat design (I.E. outline) that’s protected by copyright or a design patent.

Wavewalk’s 2008 W Kayak models are the second generation of the first commercial W boat design out of thousands of other potential W designs based in this invention.

Yoav

*These issues and others are discussed in this article: http://www.wavewalk.com/KAYAK%20SEAWORTHINESS.html

** ‘Canoe’ even in the narrower sense of a small boat designed for passengers to propel it with single blade paddles.

http://www.wavewalk.com

Some activities like sailing and fast motorized boating require extra stability.
Products called ‘kayak sail’ are of little practical use because you can’t use them to go upwind, which is your main reason for using a sail in the first place.
Therefore, if you’re thinking about W kayak sailing you’d need a canoe or dinghy sailing rig that can take you upwind and is powerful enough to make sailing fun. Because it’s powerful, such rig requires a stable boat, and that’s where the outrigger/s solution can be applied.

Similarly, you can outfit your W kayak with a small electric motor, in which case it would not necessarily require extra stability.
However, if you’re planning to motorize your W kayak with a powerful gas engine (1.5 horsepower and up) you’d need to consider increasing your boat’s stability because when going at high speed it would become unstable.

Generally speaking, adding a pair of outriggers provides more stability, but a single outrigger can offer sufficient stability while being more practical in other ways.
The first problem with having an outrigger on each side of the boat is that in certain cases it limits the passengers’ access to and from the cockpit, for example when docking.
The second problem is that if you’re fishing an outrigger can come in the way of your fishing lines, and in case you have outriggers on both sides your freedom to cast all around the boat will be limited.
For these reasons we recommend using a single, large size outrigger rather than two small ones.
Such outrigger should be as long as possible so as to add minimal drag. It should also be voluminous enough to provide the buoyancy your W kayak needs to be stable even in extreme cases. Being heavy enough and placed away from the main hull/s will make it useful when the boat leans to the other side. The outrigger’s hull should not be as high as the hull in order to prevent the boat from leaning on its side.
The distance between the outrigger and the boat should allow you to paddle comfortably - we recommend at least 4 feet (120 cm).
This illustration represents a good single outrigger solution:

Yoav

The (U.S.) National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) is offering to download a preview of the abstract of its 2006 statistical report for download free of charge on this page: http://nmma.org/facts/boatingstats/2006/files/orderform.asp

According to this report the 2006 US market for canoes was a little over 100,000 units sold, at an average price of nearly $550 per unit.
The market for kayaks was over 350,000 units sold at an average price lower than $500.
The total 2006 market for canoes and kayaks was $233,000,000.

If I understand this report correctly the data take into account neither inflatable nor used canoes and kayaks, and they reflect a relatively stable market both in price and number of units sold in recent years.
A rigid entry level kayak costs between $300 and $500 while a touring, whitewater or fishing kayak can cost over $1,000.
It becomes clear from this report that entry level (a.k.a. ‘recreational’) kayaks constitute the bulk of the market in terms of units sold, since the average kayak price is within the price range of this category.

What else is it possible to deduct from this report?
Obviously, entry level kayaks differ from traditional designs mainly by their length to width ratio (L/W, or L/B). They are shorter and wider than traditional kayaks, namely slower and stabler.
This means that the overwhelming majority of U.S. paddlers are willing to sacrifice speed for stability, and that paddlers who practice the Eskimo Roll and put their trust in it as the main means of recovery are a rarity (by that I mean even less than a minority).
Entry level is in fact the norm, and contrarily to what touring manufacturers used to believe paddlers stay at that level and don’t ‘progress’ to the traditional, narrow designs. Progress is therefore represented by the stable designs, while tradition is represented by the (you’ve probably guessed it already) traditional designs…

And last but not least, it doesn’t take statistical reports to see that kayak fishing is the most active and fastest growing market in paddle sports and activities. Most kayak manufacturers have noticed this trend and offer a wide variety of extra wide kayaks (up to 42″, that’s over one meter), because fishing requires more stability than any other kayak related application.
In the same spirit, traditional paddling magazines and websites are increasingly preoccupied with kayak fishing and feature more advertisements for fishing kayaks than ever.

Yoav

(Added May 08, 2008) -

One of the typical things that happen with a good design is that after people actually begin using it they discover new advantages it offers, and new things it enables.

The 2008 model has already exceeded our initial expectations by offering two new positions:

Side-saddle , and Riding-over

————————————————————————–

Original post:

I guess many have asked themselves what made Wavewalk modify our kayak design in the 2008 models.
The answer is a bit long:
First, we wanted to do counter affect the rising cost of shipping, and cutting two inches from the spray deflector’s top resulted in a 10% reduction in the overall nominal volume of the standard package we ship to the customer.
Second, we’ve noticed that some people preferred a more rigid cockpit rim, so we made it broader, thicker and more robust. Now they got what they wanted.
Third, we wanted to help small children (5-6 year old) paddle without having to stand up, and lowering the spray deflector offers just that.
Fourth, we wanted to make it even easier to step into the cockpit and out of it, and that’s really where one can say ‘the best gets better’.
Fifth, we thought that a deep and narrow hull was a perfect place to drag a powerful and energetic fish into while it’s fighting to get free. Lowering the cockpit rim enables the W kayak fisherman to swiftly ‘drag and drop’ the fish out of the water and into a hull with minimal effort, and let the fish calm down a bit before being taken care of - without causing a mess on the deck or worse - in the fisherman’s lap.
Sixth, we realized that although capsize and deep water re-entries are quite rare we’d better offer the paddler a more comfortable way back in, and again - a lower cockpit rim was the solution.
Seventh, a lower spray deflector enables W paddlers to move the paddle faster from side to side whether they’re canoing or kayaking their W.
Eighth, well, we felt we needed to show something new…

To compensate for the 2″ of protection lost we equipped all 2008 models with a preparation for a cockpit cover.
This means that W paddlers can paddle the 2008 models in the surf or in fast rivers as well as in bad weather while being better protected than they were before.

Yoav