When you drive a motorized W700 or S4, you still need to take a paddle with you to go where the water isn’t deep enough for the propeller to work, such as when you launch from a beach, beach in such a difficult spot, or go over a sandbar in a receding tide. The paddle you take doesn’t have to be a long, full fledged dual-blade paddle (kayak paddle), and a mere single-blade (canoe) paddle works well enough for such short distance paddling and poling tasks. If you take a passenger on board, they need a paddle too, because moving a kayak with two people on board is harder that doing it when you’re on board by yourself. Compared to kayaks paddles, the advantage of canoe paddles is that being shorter, they take less room on board.
Still, the question remains how to store a paddle, or a pair of paddles on board, without adding to your boat unwanted accessories such as paddle clips, or paddle holders, bungee cords, etc, while keeping the paddle both secure and available for use at any time.
The above picture shows how we recommend storing your canoe paddle on board a W700 or S4 – You simply slide the paddle’s blade in the narrow space between the saddle and the molded-in saddle bracket. This way, the paddle won’t be in your way when you sit or stand in your Wavewalk, and when you need it, it will be ready for you to pull and use instantly.
BTW, this method of storage can also work for storing a cutting board for bait, a filleting board for fish, and other objects. You can use the molded-in brackets to attach things to the saddle, in order to secure them, so that they won’t travel back and forth on the bottom of the hulls.
Talking about sandbars in receding tide – This is where the ability to paddle and/or pole a small and lightweight boat is critical, and where bigger and heavier boats simply fail, despite their powerful motors and various gadgets they may be equipped with.
I’d want a regular kayak paddle (preferably the longer Wavewalk paddle) on board just in case my motor decided to act up several miles from the launch site.
Gary,
These long dual blade paddles do a better job than canoe paddles, but they take a lot of room at the bottom of the hull when idle, and otherwise require attaching outside the cockpit.
Yoav
Yoav…….if roominess is a problem, I’d probable opt for the multi-piece paddles which should fit in one of the hulls out of the way.