Here’s another video clip from the beach:
This time it’s two brothers, aged 9 and 12, who perform whatever is possible considering the waves at the beach weren’t that great 
Tom and Jenny on another day - enjoying surf paddling.
Tom Buddington recently wrote us from Florida:
-”Just thought I’d post a follow-up review after having several more experiences with this truly unique boat. Recently my daughter and I were caught out in what I estimate were 25 knot winds (higher gusts I would bet for certain) and the river became dark and menacing (Gosh it was so calm and peaceful moments before!). The waves were like a white water washing machine. It just happens with those out of nowhere summer storms; I try to be careful, especially with my daughter with me, but you might not ever go out if you worried about the possibility of a storm that wasn’t even predicted. THAT’s the moment of truth. 30 minutes of dark weather paddling at first into and against 20-25 knot winds and 2-3 foot storm slop and then having it on your tail (which is worse in my opinion). We just strapped on our PFD’s NICE and TIGHT and worked it with the Wyak. And she kept us out of the water and got us home. I was impressed the whole time with the stability of the W kayak in serious conditions. We used her best attributes (those twin hulls) and the geography of the Indian River Lagoon and ducked into a safe little cove and waited for things to get calm (we were in the middle and had a long way to go to get to that cove mind you). I can’t stress enough that the ability to alternate between significantly different positions (i.e., standing to riding and a few others) in the W kayak and use different muscles made this one a story with a happy ending. Would have been wiped-out exhausted in any other boat that day.
I speak from the perspective of a guy who loves the water and lives on the water and has been a waterman for, oh, say 30 years. I have 7 other boats of differing designs, 2 of which I have committed to sell to make way for my next Wyak . The W is an incredible craft and I like it.”
And here’s another picture of Tom and Jenny surf paddling at the beach:
It’s always fun to watch kids paddling a W kayak, regardless of their age and where they paddle it.
The sense of confidence they get from the boat sooner or later translates into visible progress, tricks and stunts.
In this case this nine year old boy had to break his own record in jumping in the kayak. We have reasons to believe he may have been hoping to capsize the boat…
He kept jumping and managed to produce a lot of spray - relatively to his weight. Then he gave a pretty impressive performance of standup paddling, which is not surprising since kids seem to find position more ‘natural’ than paddling in the lower positions.
Eventually that kid and his 12 year old brother kept fooling with their boat in new and creative ways, and ended the session by declaring -”This is fun!”
Sometime it’s nice to go paddling with passengers on board your W Kayak. It can be fun to combine such an excursion with fishing, camping or bird watching.
Storage space is not a problem since the W kayak’s hull tips offer ample storage space, and you can attach additional gear on top of its hulls, but in case you need to take two passengers with you in the cockpit you’d better plan ahead. In such case canoing style paddling presents certain advantages over kayaking style paddling since the shorter, single blade paddles are less prone to hit each other.
Roles should be well defined and understood, in order to facilitate tracking.
The paddler at the stern should be the one responsible for the entire crew, since he/she can see the two others and can apply long J strokes that would help steering and tracking.
The paddler in the front can switch sides more easily than the two others - in case an additional blade is needed in the water on the other side of the kayak.
In case you use kayak (I.E. double blade) paddles, it’s important that the front paddler set the pace and the other two follow his/her paddle in parallel, otherwise the paddles will hit each other.
Like most things related to paddling - practice makes perfect.
We’ve just published a new story about Jane, a kayaker from San Diego, California, who’s just become a W kayaker. Jane took her new 2008 W kayak paddling for the first time in Mission Bay, in the company of her daughter, her two grandchildren, and their friend.
Looks like had a lot of fun…
Jane is also a seasoned Jet-ski and motorcycle rider, but that’s another story…
Scott is a W Kayak fisherman from Florida.
He went fishing with his eight year old boy in their W kayak and shot this wonderful picture of his son showing the first fish he caught.
Children normally find it harder to paddle and navigate than most adults do since they have less power and less developed motoric and spatial skills than adults have.
Kayak Touring is usually associated with the use of long and narrow traditional sit-in kayaks called Touring Kayaks or Sea Kayaks.
Paddling those kayaks requires either exceptional paddling skills or the use of a rudder (or both) for tracking, and it also requires the ability to roll the kayak in case it needs to be outfitted with a spray skirt.
These factors largely prevent children from using traditional touring kayaks and limits them to using wide, open cockpit sit-in or SOT kayaks known as ‘recreational’ kayaks that track poorly unless paddled with a rudder, which in its turn both impedes them as well as complicates things for them.
Therefore, it is quite rare to see children taking part in kayak trips in their own kayaks. The more common solution is using tandem kayaks, or canoes, but most kids love their independence and since they ride their bikes alone from an early age in most cases they expect to paddle their own kayak too, or at least prefer to do so.
The W Kayak tracks better than monohull kayaks, and therefore you never need a rudder to help it track. It’s also more ergonomic for kids than monohull kayaks are since the higher W paddling position adds power to both their paddling and control efforts.
Similarly, children can be taught to participate in kayak fishing trips in their own W kayaks from an early age. The problem in such cases is to make sure that they can operate their fishing tackle safely and independently.
This is a particularly enjoyable activity.
Kids feel both confident and excited in the W kayak, and the boat’s cockpit offers enough space for you and a child to paddle in and fish from comfortably.
The best is to ride the saddle in the back and let the kid ride or stand up in the front. This way he or she can feel independent while turning back to you to talk or in case they need your assistance, which they often do - at least in the beginning.
Obviously, you need to be careful, especially when the children cast their lines since you might accidentally get injured by a fishing hook flying near your head.
For this reason it’s important to keep a watchful eye on the young, enthusiastic fishermen at any time.
Older kids who are experienced enough with handling fishing tackle can go W kayak fishing in their own boat, providing there’s an adult nearby who can supervise them.
Yoav
Standup Paddling
This is in fact the easiest type of paddling for children.
It comes naturally to them because they feel very stable in the W kayak, and standing upright offers them the ability to apply more power in their paddle strokes, and probably to better perceive the environment and their kayak’s position in it.
The latter is important for navigation, especially when it comes to tracking, which is particularly difficult for small children. There may also be something in standing that facilitates kids’ spatial perception because it’s the position we humans naturally use for moving on land.
You will often see children who are paddling in the lower positions (sitting or riding) stand up when they feel they need more paddling power and control, such as when they’re taking part in a ‘naval battle’ game with other paddlers, or when they have to paddle upwind or counter current.
Because they are small, children can paddle standing even in tandem.
One of the main reasons children feel confident standing in their W kayaks is because if they happen to lose balance they go back to riding the saddle in the mounted (riding) position, which is the stablest. This is also the reason why paddling and fishing standing in W kayaks is a real option for adults too: If you happen to be standing in another type of kayak and you lose balance the only option left for you is to fall overboard.
Yoav
Tandem
By ‘tandem’ I mean two kids paddling together since a crew composed of an adult and a child is likely to work well without need for special instruction.
Having two adults paddling a W kayak together can pause a balance problem, which a junior tandem doesn’t have to face, and that’s a good start. However, there are some serious difficulties that a junior crew has to deal with, including propulsion, steering and tracking.
Paddling in tandem requires that each of the two paddlers understand their different roles and act accordingly in order to allow for efficient synchronization of their movements and effective control over the boat, that is its speed and direction.
It’s not easy for adults and it’s really hard for kids. Therefore, it’s best to start after each of the kids had gained some experience as a solo W paddler.
The two basic tandem paddler roles are similar to what they are for adults:
In case both paddlers use kayak paddles the less experienced paddler rides the saddle’s front part and simply paddles left and right following a slow and steady rhythm. The more experienced paddlers rides the saddle’s back and tries to keep his paddle going in parallel to the front paddler’s paddle. The trick is to do it while using different strokes of various strengths in order to track, and skipping some strokes on one side while applying stronger strokes on the opposite side while turning. It’s not easy at all, and it requires that both crew members understand what needs to be done and focus on achieving it.
The rest is practice, practice and more practice…
The result is very rewarding for both kids and parents.
When tandem W ‘canoing’ the boat needs to be paddled exactly as if it were a canoe, that is with each paddler paddling on a different side, and paddlers changing sides from time to time. Luckily, the W it tracks better than a traditional canoe, which facilitates the task.
It’s also possible to paddle in tandem with one canoe paddle and one kayak paddle, but since it’s more complicated I wouldn’t recommend it for kids.
Yoav
The Surf
The surf is a very exciting place for children but it can be a frightening one too. A child can perceive a small, three-foot wave as a threat, and a four-foot wave might take the proportions of a tsunami in his eyes.
This is quite understandable since compared to an adult a small child can exert a limited level of control over his kayak. Besides, children have a vivid imagination that can easily take things out of proportions.
This is why I would suggest limiting your child’s experience to 2-3 ft waves to begin with, and this is mainly because such waves can’t topple his/her W kayak even if it’s hit on the side.
Having said that, some kids really love it when their boat flips over, and they may even try to cause it to capsize on purpose.
As always, it’s highly recommended that you have substantial experience W surf kayaking before you start teaching your kids about it. In any case, staying close to them the first times is an absolute necessity. You should conduct these lessons in a shallow water beach with neither currents nor underwater rocks.
There are basically two main points to learn for a start:
One is to approach a coming wave at a straight angle (perpendicular) while riding the back part of the saddle, and the other is to lean into the wave in case it hits your boat on its side.
Later you can teach your kid to ride the middle part of the saddle when coming back to shore, and to control the boat with the paddle and by shifting his or her weight from side to side, but that’s more of a thing you need to practice together than a theory.
Yoav
Tracking.
This is a difficult thing to teach small children because their spatial perception is not well developed as ours.
They may not necessarily recognize an object such as a house or a tree after having seen it once, they may not yet have a good ability to distinguish between right and left or to remember a place they’ve already been to before.
There are more differences between a child’s mind and ours, but the bottom line is that tracking can be difficult for an adult to learn, and for a child it’s considerably harder.
In addition, a child’s attention span is more limited than ours, and therefore it’s harder for a child to concentrate on keeping the course.
Therefore, you need to lower your expectations and be even more patient.
The method that seems to work best in the beginning is to let the kids paddle their W Kayak behind yours or behind another paddler that can track well. Because the boat in the front is close to him it’s easier for the kid to focus on it than finding a static point on shore to focus on.
Try as much as possible to conduct such lessons on flat and calm water, preferably without wind or current, and progress as slowly as your child needs to. This is really an example of ‘practice makes perfect’.
As usual with kids, a period of quick learning and great result can come after a long period without any visible results. That’s the way it goes, and expecting a steady pace of progress is unrealistic.
The W kayaks is a good tracker by nature, which is an advantage, but once it’s going in a new direction it wants to keep going there, which means that both you and your child need to pay attention and correct little deviations from the straight course immediately as they occur.
It helps to explain why tracking is important, and the argument that seems to do the job best with kids is that in the end going in a straight line is easier than going in zigzag…
Yoav
Steering.
Steering is the easier part in navigating the kayak, and the more difficult one is tracking.
Teaching your child to steer requires a bit of patience because a child’s motoric and cognitive capabilities are not fully developed.
The child may not understand the effect of moving the paddle in the water, and will certainly have a problem visualizing the blade’s position in it, and therefore its effect on changing the boat’s direction.
However, kids like to learn new things, and eventually they do that too.
You should try and observe the paddle’s position and see if the child is not applying a J stroke without knowing it - A J stroke is what canoeists use when they want to steer their canoes in the same direction as the side they’re paddling on.
Being small can actually be an advantage when it comes to steering a W Kayak since it makes it easy for the child to lean into the turn. Therefore, you can try and teach your child to do it at a very early stage, and it would prevent him/her from leaning to lean to the side on which the paddle is moving and by that involuntarily steer the boat in the wrong direction.
All this may sound complicated but it’s not if you’re a reasonably good W paddler yourself.
Yoav
The first thing you need to teach your kid is to get into the boat. It’s always good to remember that W kayakers don’t get their feet wet because we enter the cockpit from the back and exit it from the bow, unless we dock. In such case it doesn’t really matter how the child enters or exits the boat as long as he/she does it slowly and carefully.
Generally speaking, when teaching a child how to paddle you shouldn’t set your expectations too high: Some kids are fast learners and some are not. There’s no point in accelerating the pace, as it’s better for the student to enjoy the whole process.
There are two basic sets of skills that every paddler, including children need to master. The first has to do with propulsion and control, and the second is navigation.
Propulsion and control include both getting the kayak to move forward and preventing it from tipping over. It’s easy to teach children to propel a W Kayak because they can focus just on it instead of diverting their attention to balancing, which can rather difficult in traditional kayaks. The W kayak is very stable yet only 25″ wide, which contributes to easy paddling and learning.
It’s easier for small kids to use a double blade (’kayak style’) paddle when they paddle solo but it’s also easier for them to use single blade (’canoe style’) paddles when paddling in tandem with another kid. This is because children’s coordination skills not well developed at an early age and they develop over the years. Practically, this means that having two inexperienced kids kayaking in tandem would inevitably cause their paddles to hit each other.
Generally, it’s advised to start on a pond or a small, shallow lake, and in pleasant weather. The presence of wind while they’re paddling without an adult onboard might distract kids and confuse them.
You’d preferably take the child paddling with you several times before letting him or her try to do it alone.
Yoav
Before anything else: Kids who go in kayaks must always wear a suitable PFD (personal flotation device), and they need to know how to swim.
Children like to go on water. Whether it’s fishing, touring or playing in waves - they very much enjoy paddling, and as they grow up they tend to prefer to do it by themselves.
Small children starting at age five can be taught how to paddle a W Kayak solo and in tandem. The process requires time and patience but it’s fun both for the kids and their parents.
Obviously, before attempting to teach anyone paddling you’d better be a reasonably good paddler yourself…
Being small and lightweight a child has no balance problem when in the W kayak. This is an important fact since feeling at ease from the start facilitates learning.
However, it’s also important to remember that a child that young still has developed neither adults’ motoric skills nor their sense of orientation. And obviously, such young children possess only a fraction of the physical power that we as adults have.
In recent years I’ve taught several children or various ages to paddle, and I’ve noticed that sooner or later children would raise from the W saddle and stand up, usually when they feel they need more power. This is understandable since when standing it’s easier for children to get power by applying their weight on the paddle through the use of their legs. If (actually when) this happens you shouldn’t discourage it - The child is not in danger of tipping the boat over, and he/she feels more empowered, which is good.
Yoav
Seal launching can be a good solution if you don’t want to spend too much time looking for a better spot to start your paddling or fishing trip from. You can do it just for fun too.
This video shows an 8 year old seal launching his W kayak from a steep river bank. Obviously, if an adult launched from the same spot the splash would have been huge and some water would have gotten in through the open cockpit. Therefore, the kayaker or fisherman planning to venture into seal launching should cover the front part of the cockpit, at least for the launch.
We advise you to start learning to seal launch on a less steep slope, and slide over a shorter distance… You can seal launch from a dock or a deck too.
Also, leaving your cellphone, camera, GPS and fishing gear on shore the first time would be more prudent - stuff happens…
Yoav