Here’s another video clip from the beach:
This time it’s two brothers, aged 9 and 12, who perform whatever is possible considering the waves at the beach weren’t that great 
This is our latest wave walking video (2 minutes long):
The ocean didn’t deliver big waves that day at Jenness Beach, NH, so we had to surf play using a more subtle technique. Anyway, there’s hardly ever a dull moment when you’re wave walking in the surf. You can always find new challenges that don’t necessarily involve surfing but rather measuring your skills against the waves in various angles, turning sharply, and more. Even staying in place while being battered by small breakers can be fun, if you know what you’re doing. If you don’t you lose balance and may end up swimming, but that’s no big deal, really.
Sometimes you might need to drain water from the bottom of your fishing kayak, for example if a big wave breaks right on top of it, or if you capsized it and it overturned.
Whitewater canoeists and kayakers as well as touring kayakers use either bilge buckets or bilge pumps for this purpose.
This DIY hand bilge bucket is easy to make, lightweight, and above all - effective.
You can use any 1 gallon plastic bottle (E.G. milk bottle, water bottle) to make such a bucket - Just cut the bottom and secure the cap so it won’t fall, and you’re all set.
This square, 1 gallon standard size fits the width of the W kayak hulls perfectly, which makes such a bucket more efficient.
Naturally, you should attach the bucket to your kayak, so that you can find it when you need it…
Brandon Cutter and friends, from Cape Cod, Massachusetts play with Brandon’s 2008 W fishing kayak in the surf in Nantucket. They paddle in parallel to the beach - hopping on breaking waves. They launch, surf and beach. (1 minute)
One of them easily recovers his overturned boat, and then keeps paddling.
Tom and Jenny Buddington, from Florida, are continuing their exploration of their 2008 W Kayak’s performance envelope:
Today Jenny invented a new kayak surfing style that she called “W Kayak Tail Surfing” (temporary name, probably). To us it looks like surf dancing -Isn’t it super cool?
Photography: Tyler Buddington
Tom and Jenny on another day - enjoying surf paddling.
Tom Buddington recently wrote us from Florida:
-”Just thought I’d post a follow-up review after having several more experiences with this truly unique boat. Recently my daughter and I were caught out in what I estimate were 25 knot winds (higher gusts I would bet for certain) and the river became dark and menacing (Gosh it was so calm and peaceful moments before!). The waves were like a white water washing machine. It just happens with those out of nowhere summer storms; I try to be careful, especially with my daughter with me, but you might not ever go out if you worried about the possibility of a storm that wasn’t even predicted. THAT’s the moment of truth. 30 minutes of dark weather paddling at first into and against 20-25 knot winds and 2-3 foot storm slop and then having it on your tail (which is worse in my opinion). We just strapped on our PFD’s NICE and TIGHT and worked it with the Wyak. And she kept us out of the water and got us home. I was impressed the whole time with the stability of the W kayak in serious conditions. We used her best attributes (those twin hulls) and the geography of the Indian River Lagoon and ducked into a safe little cove and waited for things to get calm (we were in the middle and had a long way to go to get to that cove mind you). I can’t stress enough that the ability to alternate between significantly different positions (i.e., standing to riding and a few others) in the W kayak and use different muscles made this one a story with a happy ending. Would have been wiped-out exhausted in any other boat that day.
I speak from the perspective of a guy who loves the water and lives on the water and has been a waterman for, oh, say 30 years. I have 7 other boats of differing designs, 2 of which I have committed to sell to make way for my next Wyak . The W is an incredible craft and I like it.”
And here’s another picture of Tom and Jenny surf paddling at the beach:
What would a kayaking magazine have to say about this picture?
This picture represents a new paddle sport that’s beyond the experience and possibly even the expectation of the kayaking community, including the editors of kayaking magazines. Can any of the editors of those magazines seriously test a W Kayak if all they know is traditional kayaking?
In order to be able to form and express a valid opinion about the W Kayak these people would have to invest time in learning, and that’s something that some experts don’t necessarily like to do because they’d rather believe they already know everything worth knowing in their domain of expertise…
I think a (good) picture is worth a thousand words, even if those words are printed in a kayaking magazine.
Yoav
If you visited Wavewalk’s website you’ve probably noticed that unlike regular surf kayakers W surf kayakers don’t wear helmets. This is because we choose our beach carefully and try to avoid playing in places where underwater rocks or other submerged objects are to be found.
Traditional surf kayakers must wear a helmet because they constantly roll they boats so they could get head injuries even without hitting a rock. Board surfers don’t wear helmets because whenever they lose balance they simply jump overboard. In this sense W kayak surfing is more like board surfing, although we go overboard much less often…
Another thing you want to avoid is to portage your W kayak over long distances. If you must do it try to choose the beach that has a parking lot that’s closest to the beach because you can drag the boat on sand and pebbles, but it’s not advisable that you do it on asphalt or concrete - In fact it would damage your W kayak in the long run.
You also want to avoid a beach that’s too crowded with bathers since paddling among them might lead to accidents.
Generally, a beach where you can see many board surfers could be a good beach for you.
Difficult spot for beaching…