Wavewalk Kayaks

Most people think that paddling a kayak in flat water isn’t very interesting. They are right, when sit-in and SOT kayaks are considered, but flat wrong when W kayaks are:

This movie is one of my favorites. It shows the W300 performing like no other paddle craft before, and highlights some of the W important advantages for paddling, touring and kayak fishing.

The reason I chose to post it again on this blog is because I recently discovered how to add annotations to YouTube videos

Yoav

Jerry Kushner is a winemaker from Kentucky, who purchased a W300 fishing kayak early this year, before the W500 became available.

Here is Jerry’s review of his W kayak:

“I planned to fish some of the fast flowing rivers with my Wavewalk kayak.
After I got it I tried it in my pond, and at first it felt tippy but once I got my balance I found it easy to paddle and maneuver.

Finally, I got to use it in the Gulf of Mexico.  I installed a pair of fold up outriggers that I purchased from Paddlers Hideaway (I found them on e-bay).
The first time I took the kayak out the waves in the surf were one to two feet high and even when broadsided by a wave the system was solidly stable.
I felt real secure, and for an almost eighty year old this rig is ideal for fishing offshore.

Jerry Kushner”

-”For me, the initial learning curve was pretty short, the “Ride” style felt quite natural, perhaps my years on motorcycles, snowmobiles, bicycles, skibikes, atv’s helped that along. I’ve played around with all the positions, standing up, tandem etc. I’m experimenting with paddling technique, weight shift etc. It’s a different kind of horse… Quick quips: stable, versatile, comfortable…
Speed: 3.5mph cruise, 5.0mph sprint, basically comparable with my 13′ day touring yak.
A guy on your forum called it a “kayakanoe”, pretty accurate.
I’ll send a comprehensive report after I’ve had more familiarization, done some customization, and have taken some photos.”

-”I discovered your micronautical.com site, very interesting… I especially like the solo sea/touring designs.

Suggestion: Add a loop at the 4 corners inside of the cockpit as leash points. This could be accomplished using the existing j-hook mount(s) used for the cockpit cover rigging.

Cheers,
Rod Ratzlaff
Lake George, CO”

(October 2009) NEW updated and comprehensive review (article) >>

The W fishing kayak’s superior stability is not just proven - it is spectacular, and anyone who watches our demo movies is amazed by what they see.

In a nutshell, our patented stabilization technology consists of a number of unique factors working together to assure maximal stability - far more than any other fishing kayak can offer, including the widest sit-in and SOT fishing kayaks, and even fishing kayaks featuring outriggers (stabilizers).

These key stability factors are:

1. Maximum use of the kayak’s buoyancy: All the W fishing kayak’s buoyancy is located as far as possible from the kayak’s center line, where it’s the most effective in stability terms. This W kayak’s ‘catamaran’ feature gives it a powerful stability advantage. In contrast, in a monohull sit-in or SOT fishing kayak most of the buoyancy’s stabilizing capability is wasted by the fact that it’s located mainly along the kayak’s center line.
2. Maximum effective leverage: In the W fishing kayak you stand up with your feet ‘planted’ on the bottom of the hulls, that is below waterline. For example, a 200 lb W kayak fisherman stands or rides his W kayak’s saddle with his feet as low as 5.5″ below waterline. In contrast, a SOT kayak fisherman who tries to stand up on the deck of his SOT kayak has his feet at least 2 to 3 inches above waterline, with little or nothing to support and hold them in place when the kayak is tilting. This poor initial stability coupled with poor stabilization capability makes it extremely hard to stand confidently on other kayaks.
3. Maximum resistance to rolling: The W kayak features twin hulls that act as double ‘hard chines’. A chine is the area where the hull’s side meets its bottom. If a boat’s chines are rounded the boat would ‘roll’ more easily than if its chines were angular. Kayak designers would give a kayak hard chines when they try to improve its resistance to rolling, or in other words when they try to increase that kayak’s ’secondary stability’. This design principle is utilized to the maximum in the W-kayak’s twin hulls that offer twice the resistance to rolling and maximal angularity.
4. Max response time: Stabilizing yourself in a small watercraft such as a kayak is easier if you have some extra time to respond to the destabilizing event. Much of the overall instability in mono-hull sit-in and SOT fishing kayaks is caused by their poor initial (primary) stability. Those kayaks’ low effective (side) buoyancy causes them to tilt faster than stabler boats such as the W-kayak. A sudden, ultra-fast and strong change can leave you too little response time. In contrast, the superior initial stability provided by each of W-kayak hulls’ position and buoyancy makes them tilt less in terms of time and distance (depth). Therefore, each time you get destabilized in a W-kayak you benefit from some extra split seconds, as well as from a better body position, so you can react more effectively and regain control more easily.
5. Maximum ‘grip’ and safety: The W fishing kayak’s patented, 14″ high saddle adds two important things when stability is concerned, especially in the Riding position, which is the most effective paddling and fishing position in kayaks. First, the saddle gives you perfect grip through your legs, without using any straps. Second, the saddle offers you good safety in case you lose balance while standing up, because you can instantly and effortlessly ‘drop’ on it, and ‘grab’ it with your thighs and knees in the riding position. Other fishing kayaks are unsafe because they offer you no such ‘plan B’ in case you lose balance while standing up.
6. Stand up paddling capability: The W fishing kayak is designed specifically for stand up paddling and fishing, while other sit-in and SOT fishing kayaks are simply too wide, which makes them ineffective for stand up paddling due to bio-mechanical problems and poor tracking.

More about stability in fishing kayaks.

And what’s a kayak fishing blog nowadays without a movie? This movie is played in 4X slow motion in order to enable the spectator to appreciate how the kayak doesn’t tip over while a large size guy is jumping up and down and from one leg to another in it:

If you want to read more on these subjects, we recommend this article about stability in kayak design

It seems like all fishing kayak manufacturers these days claim that at least one of their fishing kayak models lets you stand up and fish from. Some of them even go as far as say ‘in confidence’.

The problem with those claims is that they aren’t true, and the sure way for you to know that is by asking yourself a basic, simple and essential question:

-”What if?”

-What if you lose your balance for any reason, just because stuff happens?

And as you probably know, stuff does happen - and in fact it’s practically unstoppable… It’s usually small stuff, like a gust of wind, a motorboat’s wake, someone calling your name which makes you turn your head, a fly, a bird, a moment when you let your thoughts wander, your kayak drifting and hitting the bottom or a submerged log while you’re focusing on your line, or just a fish… Yes, some fish can be quite strong, especially those fish you’d like to catch - certainly strong enough to make you lose your balance when they bite and start vigorously pulling on your line, and most likely not in a direction that would make it easy for you…

Any of these things can destabilize you, and sooner than later it will.  And then what? You’ll tip over and fall overboard, because that’s the only solution all those wishful-thinking stand up SIK and SOT fishing kayaks have to offer you. And when that accident happens you’ll get wet, and some of your precious gear and tackle (or all of it) would get lost, and that’s too bad. You might also catch a cold, or something else (read this article about the Wet Ride ).

And let us not forget that all those pseudo stand-up fishing kayaks are not stable enough to begin with: The very form and structure of those monohull kayaks is inherently unstable (read article about kayak stability). It’s helpful to remember that all of them were developed out of the native Inuit kayaks, which were supposed to enable performing the ‘Eskimo Roll’ - if you’re sitting inside… Not a practical option for the great majority of kayak paddlers, and not a solution for anyone attempting to fish while standing on top of a kayak. Understanding this is a matter of common sense - You don’t have to be a kayak designer to realize that a kayak that’s barely stable enough for you to feel fully at ease while fishing sitting cannot support a full size, adult fisherman standing on top of it, and still be safe.

BTW, none of these facts has ever prevented any kayak manufacturer from hyping their kayaks as being ’stand up fishing’ kayaks. People want to stand up while fishing, and they want small, portable and inexpensive boats like kayaks. Naturally, kayaks manufacturers want to satisfy this demand, at least verbally….

There is only one fishing kayak out there that has a real, dependable, tested solution: Our W-kayak.

To begin with, it’s the only watercraft out there that was invented and designed specifically for stand up paddling in all types of water: flat water, streams and surf. We have a US utility (invention) patent on it.

Each of the W kayak’s twin hulls offers sufficient lateral buoyancy to support strong and sudden shifts in load, which is what happens when you lose your balance. Your feet are planted at the bottom of the hulls, below waterline - exactly where you can tap the hulls’ buoyancy to the maximum.

The W-kayak’s 14″ high saddle is positioned between your legs, which is exactly where it would be the most helpful to you when you’ll need to lower your center of gravity both suddenly and intuitively in order to regain your balance and keep your kayak from tipping over.

Bottom line: Marketing hype won’t make you stabler if you try to fish standing from an inadequate kayak platform that’s bound to send you overboard sooner than later. Having no plan B when your plan A is too shaky is a strategy that you’re bound to regret.

You need a specially designed, real-life tested and truly dependable fishing kayak for stand up fishing, and there’s only one such kayak that can answer these requirements: the W.

And if you want to see it’s not just theory, here’s a three and a half minute demo movie you may like to watch:

Advertisers often cross the line between fact and fiction, and sometimes they cross the line between true and false.

For example, a well known kayak fishing store has recently advertised on its website that one of the brands it offers* for sale is (quote): “The only kayak to truly let you stand & fish with 100% confidence”.

By doing so that store made a number of significant mistakes:

First, they openly admitted that all the other brands they have advertised for years as being suitable for stand up fishing in fact do not offer to stand and fish with 100% confidence. This is exactly what what Wavewalk has been saying all the time.

Second, that store is misleading the public to think that particular kayak is safe, while it is far from being so since its outriggers are positioned at the stern, and therefore leave the standing kayak fisherman with no extra buoyancy at all to support him on the sides of his kayak’s middle and front parts, where he’s likely to tilt his boat when fishing. Anyone can see that.

Third, if a kayak fisherman standing on that SOT loses balance, as he’s expected to do sooner or later, he has a metal frame to hold on to, but nothing to fall down on - Assuming that fisherman is holding his fishing rod with both hands (common practice…) he’s likely to fall overboard, as he would from any other SOT or sit-in kayak. In fact, holding on to the metal frame increases leverage on the hull and makes it easier to tilt sideways and overturn.

And last but not least, that store’s statement is obviously false since the only fishing kayak that really offers fishermen to stand up and fish with 100% confidence and safety is the Wavewalk, as anyone can see by watching these movies at the bottom of the article discussing stability in kayaks.

* a sit-on-top kayak equipped with folding outriggers



Here’s another one of those spectacular (goofy?) demo movies we produce from time to time. It shows a rather special stand up paddling technique involving hopping while paddling…
Totally useless in terms of kayaking or fishing, but it’s the best workout I can imagine.

And this is the second part of the super stability demo video:

This is a new demo video showing what ’super stability’ means. We show the footage in X4 slow motion so that the viewer can better appreciate what’s going on:

The movie was shot on the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts, by no other than Jeff McGovern, from Florida, who was on a business trip here and came to visit us.

Thanks Jeff!

By the way, I’m the one demonstrating the Wavewalk kayak - I’m 6 ft tall, and I weigh 195 lbs.

Yoav



Scott sent us more pictures from his Minnesota river trips, and here’s one that tells something about stability:

Scott tells: -”I paddled the Maple river in nice calm waters with good depth, my Pepsi was riding securely in front of me along side my camera.”

Well, if you can keep a soda can securely on your kayak’s deck without using a cup holder while you’re paddling down a sinuous river, it says something about your boat’s primary (initial) stability…

As the popularity of kayak fishing increases more kayak designers and manufacturers are drawn to offer their solutions to kayak fishermen. Interestingly, if one can judge from the solutions the main problem that needs addressing is the fishing kayaks’ poor stability.

Out of three recent, original monohull designs all three are explicitly designed to be stabler than regular fishing kayaks, and two out of the three represent experiments in combining canoe features into the kayak design - for the purpose of increasing overall stability.

The two canoe-like or canoe hybrids are different by the fact that one is a SOT and the other a SIK. Both are very wide, and are offered as solutions for flat water fishing. This could mean that either their manufacturers estimate the offshore kayak fishing market to be too small to be worth addressing, or their boats not to perform well enough in the surf. This brings up again the question of seaworthiness, and whether these designs are indeed stable, comfortable and and safe enough to be used for standup fishing.

The third new fishing kayak design is a monohull as well, but it departs from the conventional approach of trying to increase stability by making the hull wider. This design offers a mechanism enabling splitting the rear part of the kayak in two and pulling the ends sideways, thus creating a stabler platform for the fishermen to fish from. The obvious problem with this design is that once the fishing configuration is deployed the ‘kayak’ becomes nearly stationary since paddling it does not meet any standard of efficiency. This fishing kayak is not offered for offshore fishing either, which again implies that its manufacturers may have some concerns about its possible performance in the ocean.

In this context it is interesting to see that another manufacturer of fishing kayaks now offers outriggers to accompany their kayaks, which is yet another fact that shows stability to be a problem at the core of the kayak fishing concept.

Overall, the appearance of new designs and solutions that address the stability problem is a sign showing that some kayak designers and manufacturers are attentive to the real problems that kayak fisherman face. Whether any of the solutions offered are viable in the long run remains to be seen.

There’s something really enjoyable about being to paddle your W kayak standing - It adds another dimension to your experience, and makes you view the world around a little differently.
Just imagine going down a snowy slope on a snowboard or skis for the first time after all your life you’ve been used just to sledding.
Except there’s a little bit more to paddling standing because you’re doing something that’s been not only impossible but forbidden as well…
As for jumping in your W kayak, that’s something that I can find no parallel to.

I feel a little sorry for some kayak fishermen who claim they can fish standing on top of their SOT kayaks:
-Can they do it when the water gets choppy? (No)
-Can they do it if there’s a strong wind blowing? (No)
-Can they do it in full confidence (No)
-What happens if they lose balance (They inevitably go overboard)
-Why would anyone want to try standing on a SOT when it requires so much attention just to keep your balance? (Beats me)

Yoav

This little video might take a few seconds to appear:

The (U.S.) National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) is offering to download a preview of the abstract of its 2006 statistical report for download free of charge on this page: http://nmma.org/facts/boatingstats/2006/files/orderform.asp

According to this report the 2006 US market for canoes was a little over 100,000 units sold, at an average price of nearly $550 per unit.
The market for kayaks was over 350,000 units sold at an average price lower than $500.
The total 2006 market for canoes and kayaks was $233,000,000.

If I understand this report correctly the data take into account neither inflatable nor used canoes and kayaks, and they reflect a relatively stable market both in price and number of units sold in recent years.
A rigid entry level kayak costs between $300 and $500 while a touring, whitewater or fishing kayak can cost over $1,000.
It becomes clear from this report that entry level (a.k.a. ‘recreational’) kayaks constitute the bulk of the market in terms of units sold, since the average kayak price is within the price range of this category.

What else is it possible to deduct from this report?
Obviously, entry level kayaks differ from traditional designs mainly by their length to width ratio (L/W, or L/B). They are shorter and wider than traditional kayaks, namely slower and stabler.
This means that the overwhelming majority of U.S. paddlers are willing to sacrifice speed for stability, and that paddlers who practice the Eskimo Roll and put their trust in it as the main means of recovery are a rarity (by that I mean even less than a minority).
Entry level is in fact the norm, and contrarily to what touring manufacturers used to believe paddlers stay at that level and don’t ‘progress’ to the traditional, narrow designs. Progress is therefore represented by the stable designs, while tradition is represented by the (you’ve probably guessed it already) traditional designs…

And last but not least, it doesn’t take statistical reports to see that kayak fishing is the most active and fastest growing market in paddle sports and activities. Most kayak manufacturers have noticed this trend and offer a wide variety of extra wide kayaks (up to 42″, that’s over one meter), because fishing requires more stability than any other kayak related application.
In the same spirit, traditional paddling magazines and websites are increasingly preoccupied with kayak fishing and feature more advertisements for fishing kayaks than ever.

Yoav