According to the dictionary, we perceive something as being beautiful if it is attractive to us (e.g. a beautiful woman) or pleasant (e.g. a beautiful day), or pleasant to look at (e.g. a beautiful dress), or if it’s done or made very well (e.g. a beautiful goal in the second half), or with a lot of skill (e.g. a beautiful roast).
Beauty can be associated directly with sensory pleasure, or with indirect, social value related to monetary value, or prestige (e.g. a beautiful diamond), or with both.
In case of a product such as a kayak, the beauty we see in it is a measure of how much we appreciate its performance in terms of what’s important to us, subjectively, whether as something we’ve already experienced with this kayak, or something we believe we would experience, if we used it.

In this sense, the saying ‘beauty is in the eyes of the beholder’ is perfectly true.

What’s important?

What’s important in a product varies according to what different people are interested in. For example, if you’re into kayak racing, you’d be interested in kayaks that are as fast as possible, and very fast kayaks would seem beautiful to you, but if you’re into kayak fishing, you’d be interested a number of things, including stability, comfort, storage, etc. offered to you by that kayak. In other words, for a kayak angler, the beauty of a kayaks depends first and foremost on its fishability, which is a composite measure of a fishing kayak’s performance.

For example, if you’re into kayak fishing, and you saw a kayak that’s very fast but also very unstable, it would seem useless to you, and therefore unattractive.
Most anglers fish from motorboats and not from kayaks, mainly because they perceive kayaks as being too unstable and too uncomfortable for fishing.  Therefore, for the majority of anglers, a fishing kayak is just a too small, too uncomfortable and therefore unpractical and consequently ugly fishing boat.

Beauty and love

The more satisfied a kayak angler is with the performance of their fishing kayak, the more they see beauty in it, and in fact, some kayak anglers get to love their kayak, following the good experience they’ve had with it, and the good time they anticipate having with it in the future.

False beauty

Anyone who’s interested in fishing kayaks can see that the common fishing kayak is essentially just a chubbier, more accessorized, and sometimes fancier version of its ancestor the recreational kayak.

The common fishing kayak is very wide because of the desperate need to increase its stability, even at the cost of sacrificing both speed and tracking capability, and most importantly – taking away the pleasure of paddling from the person who paddles it. This is what kayak anglers refer to as ‘a barge to paddle’, and the reason why some touring and sea kayakers still won’t consider fishing kayaks as kayaks at all…

Too much is too little

The multitude of accessories is sometimes required to compensate for a fishing kayak’s deficient functionality. The perfect example is the rudder that most fishing kayaks are equipped with, and most kayak anglers hate, but they have to use it simply because without it their kayak wouldn’t go straight, due to its poor tracking capability. Another good example are the hatches – an uncomfortable, often dysfunctional solution to the critical problem of storage, or lack thereof…

In this context, it is easy to see why manufacturers who offer pedal driven kayaks are more successful in the market for fishing kayaks than in any other kayak market: Common fishing kayaks are so hard and unpleasant to paddle that a hyped, ill conceived solution is seen by some as better than nothing, at least until they realize they’re not necessarily better off pedaling…

When fancy becomes ridiculous

A product that is essentially lacking in performance, and therefore not  attractive enough, is a problem for its manufacturer, and they would attempt to increase its attractiveness by whatever means they have, even if such means present no advantage at all to the client. The typical example for this in fishing kayaks is increasing the amount of foam in the kayak’s seat, which cannot really solve the basic problem of the passenger pushing their lower back against the backrest with all the power their legs have. But extra foam may look more ‘ergonomic’ to some people, and if it’s promoted as being ergonomic, some people could get convinced to buy the kayak – until they realize that’s not what they had bargained for, and get tired of this game, go back to fishing from a motorboat, or switch to a W kayak.

Another common example of overdoing things is the form of the fishing kayaks themselves: Some kayaks feature very elaborate hulls, or decks, or both, as if the extra detail could improve anything as far as stability, speed and comfort are concerned. To the unprofessional or inexperienced viewer, such extra details could seem like an indicator that the kayak is more ‘advanced’, but the truth is that overdoing things can only diminish actual performance, by definition. In other words, nothing beats simple effectiveness in design.

Simple is beautiful

This is the simple truth in design, and it’s even more true in fishing kayaks, which are judged by their performance: A fishing kayak is a technical product that needs to deliver results in terms of what the angler can achieve with it, and how they feel while doing so, as well as after the fishing trip is over.

If a kayak allows you to launch or beach in a spot that another kayak doesn’t, it performs better, and therefore it’s more beautiful. If a kayak allows you to stay inside it for long hours, while no other kayak allows you to do that without inflicting discomfort and pain on you, that kayak performs better, and you’re going to like it more, and therefore see more beauty in it.

These examples come to show that it’s not the amount of time invested in designing or manufacturing a product that appeals to our sense of beauty, but it’s the real life performance of that product, and our own experience with it.  When we realize that in order to get a certain level of performance, the product needed to be made in a certain way, we appreciate the way it was done. And if the result was achieved by simple means, we tend to appreciate it even more.

Once people realize the advantage for themselves in a certain design, form, or feature, they see the beauty in it, and sometime even develop a warm feeling for it, a feeling called love.

Beauty and marketing

Being a technical product, the way to judge and evaluate a fishing kayak is by doing a feature by feature comparison, and preferably by validating the results of such comparison in a live test.

There is no fishing kayak, fishing kayak design, or concept that rivals the W kayak in any of the important requirements from a fishing kayak, which are Stability, Comfort, Ease of Paddling, Passenger Room, Storage Space, Versatility, Tracking, Handling, Mobility, and dollar for dollar Value. Value is not a technical feature, but in this case we’ve included it in the list because it represents certain technical attributes of W kayaks that reduce their cost of purchase and ownership, compared to other kayaks.

Years ago, Wavewalk’s competitors used to criticize its product by raising doubts about its actual performance, such as speed, comfort, tracking under wind, etc.  These doubts were based solely on imagination, and had no basis in anyone’s real life experience, and over the years,  as the evidence presented by Wavewalk improved, and more of its customers contributed positive reviews, this type of critic has subsided.

However, some competitors still say, occasionally, that W kayaks are ‘ugly’, and when such comments are made on online discussion forums, they are intended to create some kind of negative ‘peer pressure’ on kayak anglers who are interested in the W kayak. The problem with such tactic is that if a general and broad argument such as ‘ugly’ is brought forward without any substantial, technical evidence to back it, it sounds hollow, and basically meaningless. But if the ‘ugly’ argument is backed by a specific, technical argument, the reader could go and check its validity on Wavewalk’s website, through the demo movies, technical articles, and customer reviews, and they could then see for themselves that it’s a moot argument.

The challenge that Wavewalk is facing is to convince thousands of anglers who fish from kayaks that W kayaks are better, and worth switching to. We also need to convince millions of anglers who fish from motorboats that they need to give kayak fishing a second thought, and that fishing kayaks are not necessarily ugly, if they can provide a higher level of fishability that’s comparable to what these anglers are used to get in fishing boats, as W kayaks have proved they could.

In sum, the W kayak holds the key to making more people see the beauty in kayak fishing.

Read more about motorizing your fishing kayak >>

Kayak fishing promised a cheaper, hassle free, low maintenance, lightweight, car top form of fishing craft, and a direct, sporty experience. However, today, out of tens of millions of Americans who fish from boats, merely one in every thousand fishes from a kayak, and this is after a decade of promises that ‘kayak fishing is the fastest growing outdoors sport’, etc.  The bulk of US anglers have followed neither the kayak fishing pioneers nor the fishing kayak manufacturers’ hype, and since growth in kayak fishing participation is no longer as fast as it had been several years ago, it is safe to say that the US kayak fishing market has matured. This is partly a result of decreasing enthusiasm from new participants, as well as a high dropout rate that has been typical to this sport since its early beginnings.

Yes, but…

But kayak fishing feels extremely uncomfortable only if you’re fishing from the old fashion, sit-on-top (SOT) kayaks and sit-in kayaks. In contrast, when you fish from a W kayak, you experience a level of comfort that’s equivalent to that of fishing from a regular size boat, and some W fans would argue that you feel even better.

When stability is concerned, the level of stability an angler experiences while fishing from a W500 kayak is on par with what they’d feel fishing in a regular size fishing boat, in the sense that they are not required to constantly address the issue of balancing, and they can fish standing up with ease, comfort and confidence that are outside the world of fishing kayaks.

The W500 is the only kayak offering storage space that’s dry and accessible any time, and as much as any kayak angler may need, even if their fishing trip includes camping, and therefore carrying on board numerous and bulky items that so far only canoes and regular size boats could carry.

The future

This is to say that kayak fishing has a future, and a bright one, but not as the extreme sport it’s been for most kayak anglers so far. The future of kayak fishing as a broad base sport and leisure activity depends on the participation of regular people, who care about their personal comfort, and demand a performance level in stability and storage that is not sub-minimal.  In other words, the future of kayak fishing is W kayak fishing.

1. From 1990, the number of news articles about kayak fishing kept increasing, and it peaked in 2007.

2. Since 2007, the number of published news articles about kayak fishing has kept decreasing. In fact, the number of news articles about kayak fishing in 2009 was lower than its level in 2004.

This chart was taken from a screen shot of the Google page above:

Interestingly, the number of websites and blogs related to kayak fishing has visibly gone up in the past decade, as part of the media explosion brought by the Internet. In addition, big and small kayak manufacturers have focused on the kayak fishing market in every way they could, and tried to bring the public’s attention to their products by all means.

So what’s the reason for this decrease in media coverage of kayak fishing in the past two years?

The first explanation that comes to mind is that it could be related to the economic recession, but does it make sense? The recreational fishing boat market has been severely hit, but what kayak manufacturers and other vendors and affiliated professionals have been saying is that now, more then ever, a kayak offers a the cheap way to go fishing, and consequently, they expected sales of fishing kayaks and to go through the roof, and interest in kayak fishing to explode. They even promoted the idea of stand-up kayak fishing from their obviously inadequate kayaks, thinking the public would go for it.

However, we think, as we’ve stated in the past, that many kayak anglers quit practicing kayak fishing after some time, as they find it to be less rewarding than they had initially hoped it would be. Usually, the kayak angler’s expectation is to be able to spend a few hours on the water, having fun catching fish, while the reality in many cases is that doing so results in a sore back, an aching butt, and numb legs – on top of being wet, especially if you fish from a SOT kayak.

In other words, a significant proportion of kayak anglers drops from the sport, and it could be that their numbers are now equal to, or exceed the number of new kayak anglers who enter the sport. Consequently, the public’s level of interest in kayak fishing has begun to decline, and the lower level of media exposure reflects this trend.

At Wavewalk, we’ve experienced a totally different reality, with sales increasing year after year at a faster pace, and 2009 being a boom year. Read more >>

This success has to do with the fact that our W kayaks offer a truly good user experience, less fatigue, no back pain or any other physical pain and discomfort, plus they’re stable enough to offer stand-up kayak fishing in confidence and safety.

Related article: Read more about web search trends for kayak fishing >>

Our sales this year grew by 64% compared to 2008, which was our best year so far. This is encouraging in view of the continuing slump in the boat and kayak markets, caused by the economic recession.

Our new W500 kayak series turned to be a resounding success, with W500 kayaks taking the lead over the old war horse, the W300.

Most pleasing is the fact that so many W500 clients have taken the time to send us great reviews and stories.

The W500 seems to be a kayak that people simply LOVE, including those who’ve already owned or used a W300 before. As some of these clients have put it: -”Wavewalk took the world’s best kayak and improved on it!”.

Some W anglers go as far as saying the W500 is better than any small fishing boat, and not just fishing kayaks.

This year we expanded our exports, with shipment to clients in Norway and Australia, and increased our sales in New Zealand and Canada. We look at this geographic expansion with particular satisfaction.

In 2009, more clients have ordered a second, and sometimes even a third W kayak from us. This shows to us that once people get used to W kayaks for either paddling or fishing, they’re not likely to change, or go back to an old-fashion sit-in or SOT kayak. In other words, it means we’re on the right track.

Our website wavewalk.com attracted over 150,000 individual visitors this year, including tens of thousands of returning visitors. This is an annual increase of over a third compared to 2008. Our blog is vibrant with stories, pictures, movies, comments and discussions, and has a growing number of fans – some of which aren’t even Wavewalk customers (yet…)  In other words, although we’re still a small company, we’ve already established a significant web presence.

The more we listen to our customers the more we learn, and it helps us improve our products, as well as the service we provide. We would have not succeeded in making the W500 as good as it is without people commenting on their experience with the early models of the W300, and its latest version – the 2008. The blog we introduced in 2008 proved to be an increasingly useful means of communication between our customers and us, as well as between the customers and themselves. This blog is also fun, which is a bonus for everyone

And last but not least – our customers: You people proved to be courageous, patient, creative, supportive, productive and loyal beyond anything we had expected, or deserve . You people made this year great for Wavewalk, and we are very grateful to you!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!

Yoav

]]> http://wavewalk.com/blog/2009/12/31/thank-you-for-a-great-2009-and-happy-new-year-2010/feed/ 8 http://wavewalk.com/blog/2009/08/02/more-records-for-wavewalk-kayaks-in-july/ http://wavewalk.com/blog/2009/08/02/more-records-for-wavewalk-kayaks-in-july/#comments Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:48:34 +0000 W kayak http://wavewalk.com/blog/?p=327 Continue reading →]]> August marks the beginning of the new fiscal year Wavewalk, and it’s a good time to compare y-o-y performance.
As it stands now, we sold 42% more kayaks in the 2008-9 year (August 1st to July 31st) compared to our previous fiscal year 2007-8, which in itself was pretty good.
The W500 is a big success, and it contributed significantly to this increase.
Overall, the pace of increased sales has been accelerating since 2006, in both our touring and fishing kayak models.

As for our website, another record was broken in July, with 18,638 unique visitors (real, individual people, that is). So far, our website attracted more than 100,000 unique visitors since the beginning of 2009.