Wavewalk Kayaks

It’s been a year since the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS) exhibited a W Kayak in its Engineer It! exhibit.

The DMNS chose to exhibit the W Kayak to represent technical innovation in boat design.

You can pan through an online interactive view of the exhibit by clicking and dragging your mouse cursor on the frame (requires Apple QuickTime viewer)

The organizers of this exhibit reported that the visitors loved the boat.

I thought that event worth remembering since it was the first time the W concept was officially recognized.

Yoav



When you hear ‘canoe’ you usually think of a big paddling and fishing boat for two or more adults, but it’s not necessarily true. Canoes come in all sizes, including very small ones for whitewater.

You may ask yourself what’s the point in canoing if double blade paddles are easier to use, but that’s a matter of perception, and for may people canoe paddles are more fun. Using canoe paddles presents an advantage in small rivers with dense vegetation, where a longer paddle could get caught in branches. It’s also easier to paddle the W in tandem using canoe paddles than it is with kayak paddles.

We recently added a preparation for a cockpit cover, which offers the passenger/s good protection prom spray and bad weather.

The W makes a perfect small canoe: It tracks well and isn’t prone to windage problems like regular canoes can be. It is also stabler and more comfortable than most canoes are. And last but not least, it’s also easy to cartop, which can’t be said about big canoes.

Photo courtesy of Pemi Baker River Adventures, NH

Some people think the name W Kayak is an abbreviation of Wavewalk kayaks. In a way it’s true, but there is also another source:
It is common for letters of the alphabet to be used to label different types of hull. For example, a V hull is one whose cross section looks like the letter V, and a U hull is one whose cross section looks like the letter U. The latter form is popular in canoe and kayak design. A new type of multihull design features M hulls.

Similarly, if you looked at a cross section of a W boat you would see a form reminding of the letter W, or more precisely a ‘Double U’ since the bottom of each of the W twin hulls is flat, I.E. more shaped like a U than a V.
When looking at the wake the W Kayak leaves behind its twin hulls the W shape can be easily perceived.
In fact, our W logo is shaped in a way that can be seen either as a wake or flat water or the crest of a wave - depending on how you choose to interpret it.

Yoav