WAVEWALK KAYAKS

The notion that kayak fishing is booming has been repeated for years by various interested parties, but a search in Google News archives revealed these intriguing facts:

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 >>

Early this we published a blog asking whether the sport of kayak was actually growing as fast as interested parties were saying it was.

Since there are no official data to analyze, we keep tracking the search activity on Google, through Google Trends. Here is their latest report on USA searches for ‘kayak fishing’: USA Kayak Fishing Report 2004-2009

With kayak fishing continuously being referred to as the fastest growing paddle sport, one can only wonder why such strong growth isn’t reflected in Internet searches on the most popular search engine, although Internet search itself is an activity that’s grown very rapidly in recent years.

The simplest answer we can think of is that kayak fishing has become more institutionalized in recent years with more websites and tournaments dedicated to kayak fishing, and a couple of kayak fishing magazines, but the real increase in the volume of kayak anglers has been more moderate than what fishing kayak vendors and kayak fishing media would like the public to believe.

Like every social phenomenon, kayak fishing has had its period of initial, fast growth, followed by a period of moderate growth, and now possibly a very moderate growth – if any.

It’s likely to assume that the main reason for the decrease in growth rate is the fact that many anglers who try kayak fishing end up quitting this sport because they find kayaks to be inadequate for fishing, obviously because fishing kayaks offer neither sufficient stability nor elementary comfort.

One would have assumed that in times of economic crisis, millions of motorized anglers would flock to kayak fishing as a cheap substitute, but it seems like such shift hasn’t occurred in reality.

As for Wavewalk, we’ve experienced a major growth in sales of fishing kayak models this year, and nearly all our clients have been using traditional sit-in and SOT fishing kayaks before they decided to switch to ours.

2009 numbers for the kayak industry keep declining because of the recession.
In contrast, in the third quarter of the year (Q3: July, August and September) Wavewalk sold as many kayaks as it did in Q3-2008 and Q3-2007 combined, and we’re very grateful for that.

We’d like to thank all our clients and supporters, and we’ll keep doing the best we can to provide people with the world’s best kayaks, and support them with the best service we can.

Yoav

Previous blogs on similar subjects:
June
March
February
January
2008

May was a wonderful month at Wavewalk. We broke our own all-time record in the number of boats ordered with a strong double digit growth, and our website logged over 16,000 unique visitors.

The W500 is a hit, and it’s currently more popular than the W300.

Yoav




Google offers an online, free service that shows trends in searches for key words.

For example, this is the link for a report on searches for the key phrase fishing kayak:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=fishing+kayak&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Interestingly, this report shows that Jacksonville, Florida is the world capital of kayak fishing:

The report also shows that the number of Google searches for this phrase is seasonal, and has remained steady since 2005:

However, when it comes to states, Hawaii leads, and Florida comes second:

Five years ago, some kayak distributors were urging kayak manufacturers to produce kayaks that are more fit for fishing. Some manufacturers replied that their existing models were good enough for fishing, and people just had to get used to fishing from narrow and unstable kayaks.

Other manufacturers came up with extra wide kayak models, kayaks outfitted with outriggers, and all sorts of inventions intended to improve the customers’ fishing experience, including pedal drives promising ‘hands free fishing’, and strange hull designs that were supposed to allow stand up fishing in confidence.

All kayak manufacturers kept offering ‘improved’ kayak seats they said would tackle to problems of back pains and leg discomfort.

In reality, customers in 2009 still face a range of inadequate kayaks that don’t solve any of their fundamental problems:

When compared to bigger boats, SOT and sit-in kayaks are still too unstable to provide the same level of confidence required for fishing. Although all manufacturers and vendors claim they have kayak models allowing for fishing standing, their claims are unsubstantiated when closely examined.

As for comfort and ergonomics, the situation is exactly the same as it was five, ten and thirty years ago: namely very bad, with most kayak paddlers and fishermen suffering from discomfort, pain and even injuries, and many who quit kayaking and kayak fishing.

‘Hand free fishing’ is not hands-free as long as the kayak operator has to steer (and track) using hand-activated rudders. More importantly, pedaling in the recumbent position is draining, and therefore less effective than paddling in the long run.

In terms of mobility, there has been a regression, as SOT and sit-in kayaks don’t offer better means to launch, paddle and beach with more ease in more places, but on the contrary – the new outriggers and pedal drives in fact restrain the boat’s mobility.

At Wavewalk we feel encouraged by our customers’ reactions, which confirm that our W-kayak offers true solutions to all these problems, and more.

Overall, 2008 was a banner year for Wavewalk kayaks:

Although the kayak market dropped 8% this year, our sales grew at a strong double-digit rate. Even this holiday season was remarkably good – much better than last year’s.

Traffic to our website increased at a double-digit rate too, with over 100,000 individuals visiting it this year. In average, each visitor spent more time on it than last year’s visitors had.  On its busiest day this year our website received 630 visits. We conclude from these data that people’s interest in our website keeps growing.

The blog we launched in January ’08 is already a success, being one of our website’s most visited sections.

Customer satisfaction kept growing, and not a single client asked for any refund. Our customers kept sending us good reviews and interesting stories, pictures and movies. Many of them say that our W-kayak is the world’s best one-man fishing boat, even when compared to ‘real boats’, and not just to kayaks and canoes.

Interestingly, this year we had no claims to file against the trucking company that we ship our W-kayaks with.

Things haven’t always been so, which makes us appreciate this success, and care even more about our customers.



Yoav

2007 was a very good year for Wavewalk, and 2008 was even better

Our competitors estimate that the US kayak market shrunk by 8% this year, but our annual sales kept increasing at a strong, double-digit rate.
As for the number of individuals who visited our website, it crossed the 100,000 mark in 2008, with people enjoying longer visits reading articles, customer reviews and blog posts, as well as watching movies.
However, the most important thing for us is the fact that our customers are more satisfied than ever, with some coming back to purchase their second, and even third W-kayak. We value their satisfaction and loyalty as the true signs of our success.
These days paddlers and fishermen are looking to get the best value for their dollars, and they find it in our kayaks.

Yoav

We’ve started shipping the new 2009 W Kayak models.

Customers who got the 2008 models were very pleased with the lower and sturdier spray deflector, as well as with the new side flotation, handles and other accessories. This is why it was hard for us to think of new improvements. Eventually, we did come up with such an improvement, although it’s not a major one by any standard:

The new 09′ W Kayak models have more holes in the upper part of their cockpit rim (6 actually). This feature speeds drainage when you overturn the boat after beaching it – All spray and rain water that may have drained down to the bottom of the hulls is drained out within seconds.

An additional benefit from these extra holes is the fact they serve as more attachment points for all the equipment you need to secure to your W Kayak – Whether it’s fishing tackle, or camping and photography gear.