WAVEWALK KAYAKS

Jeremy is a sea kayaker and small boat sailor from Mississippi, who got his W-kayak a short time ago. The reason we’re particularly interested in him is that he’s planning to outfit his W-boat with a rather powerful DIY sailing rig. We sent him some pultruded fiberglass tubes that are strong and lightweight enough to be used as masts and booms for his sails.

Here’s Jeremy’ second report:

-”O.K., I’m up and wave walking around in 10 mph winds and 12 inch waves. Very cool.  After standing sitting feels much more stable. You’re right, it’s very much like riding a horse or bike, and all my kayaking reflexes are wrong, but I’m adjusting.

Now that I’m feeling more comfortable  with the stability I’ll start fooling around with the masts you sent (thanks!)”

An  unexpected but nice attribute of the boat is that I wheel it on a dolly to beach, about 100 yards or so, and unlike a standard kayak which requires me to twist around while pulling, I am centered pulling the wavewalk ( I put a paddle through the handles to pull on), and so can use both hands with no asymmetrical exertion/rotation.  Doesn’t sound like much,  but on a long pull every little thing helps.

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