Riding over is yet another position enabled by the new 2008 kayak design.
It’s basically a static position, for fishing, resting, chatting, shooting pictures, cooling your feet in the water etc.
You can paddle while you ride over your W kayak, but you won’t go very fast…
Photography: Jim Green
The W is unlike any other kayak that you’ve paddled in more than one way.
While it’s plain to see that it looks differently and performs differently, it’s more difficult to see that the paddler operates this kayak in a manner that’s not even close to traditional kayaking.
When you see the paddle moving left and right it’s easy to assume that the paddler is ‘kayaking’ but he’s not- he’s W kayaking, and that’s not the same.
The W paddler’s preferred posture is Riding (mounting) the 14″ high saddle with his legs on both sides of his body: The tip of the foot below the ankle, and both are in a direct line below the hip and the torso. The upper body rests both on the saddle and on the hull’s bottom - through the legs and feet. Riding (mounting) a W kayak is very similar to mounting a pony, when the rider’s torso is supported by the saddle on the horse’s back as well as by the stirrups through the legs and feet.
This means that the W paddler shifts his weight from side to side using his feet, legs and hips in a way that doesn’t even resemble traditional kayaking. It also means that the W paddler applies paddle strokes that are unlike the traditional kayaking strokes: They are longer and more powerful, and the lower body takes an active part in each and every one of them.
This W kayak Riding (Mounted) position is also the most effective for casting fishing lines and reeling in fish, but first you need to know how to paddle your W before you can go kayak fishing with it. This is because fishing, like surfing and sailing is a secondary application in any kayak, the primary application being paddling.
Remember that your experience in traditional kayaking and kayak fishing might be irrelevant to W kayaking and W kayak fishing. In fact, such previous experience might even make it harder for you to get used to your new kayak in case you insist upon using traditional kayaking style techniques for balancing, controlling and paddling your new W kayak. If this is the case you should remind yourself that in order to learn this new paddling style you’d need to ‘unlearn’ the old one. It’s easier if you keep in mind how canoing and traditional kayaking are different from each other, and W kayaking differs from both although there are some similarities.
You can expect a learning curve but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a long one. Those things are personal and unpredictable, and becoming an accomplished W kayaker may take you anything from one hour to a few weeks. The more closely you follow instructions the easier, faster, more fun and more rewarding your learning process will be.
Needless to say that fishing, like paddling, is an acquired skill, and fishing from kayaks is a set of skills that you can’t expect to master immediately, even if you’ve been fishing from shore or from bigger boats before.
A big and powerful fish may be smaller and altogether weaker than you, but being in its natural element while you’re not gives it an advantage that may compromise your kayak’s stability, get you somewhere that you don’t necessarily want to go to in long a ’sleigh ride’, or make you lose the fish because you’re too busy controlling your kayak.
This is a maneuver that Jeff McGovern and myself developed together as a ‘think tank’ and ‘R&D team’. It’s called the ‘Combat Position’, and it’s possible to execute only in a W Kayak:
Upon realizing that you have a business with a big fish you need to swiftly reposition yourself along the saddle in the riding position (’Mounted’) and as forward in the cockpit as possible, with your knees tucked into the front hull tip openings - see ‘1′ in the illustration below.
As a result of this change in weight distribution your W kayak’s bow will dip in the water (see ‘2′) while the stern will come out of the water (see ‘3′).
In this position your W kayak will be ‘planted’ in the water and offer maximum resistance to unwanted change, whether such change is tilting sideways or going forward.
Being in this position will free you from the need to balance your kayak while you’re fighting the fish, and let you focus on your fish whose capability to outmaneuver you was reduced to almost zero.
All the fish could do now is swim forward or sideways, and since your W kayak will generate a lot of drag in this position the fish will soon get tired and become less of a problem to reel in.
