[Paddlewise] Innovations in sea kayak designs

I've been mulling over the thread that rotated around the video "a
conversation with Derek Hutchinson" and some of the comments. Derek
Hutchinson has said that he thinks design innovation in sea kayaking is
moribund, if not dead, and this got me to thinking. In many ways I agree
with him. Especially over the past few years with the popularity of the
"Brit Boats"; many of which are indistinguishable from designs of the 1970s.
I suppose you could say, "why tinker with perfection" but I'm not at all
sure that the Brit Boats are perfection. At any rate, whether you are
admirer of this style or not, they certainly don't typify much in the way of
innovation.

At the other end of the sea kayak spectrum you find the "big boats" that are
mostly refinements of boats by BC and PNW designers of the 1970s. There are
a few boats in the middle but, for the most part, looking at trailers of
boats at the Port Townsend Kayak Seminar last September I was hard pressed
to find anything radically different other than the traditional ones. There
were the rounded hulls of the "heavy haulers" and the hard chines of the
"brit boats"; the holes for skegs in one and rudders on the other.

This is in dramatically stark contrast to white water kayaking which has
undergone what can only be called (if you'll pardon the overused phrase) a
paradigm shift over the past 15 years. Rivers once populated by 12-foot-long
river runners has moved to a point where there are boats specialized for
water conditions and paddler size. And all of them are shorter than they
used to be. So you'll find creek boats, river runners and playboats with the
last two categories divided into boats further divided into categories for
paddler size. The RPM and RPM Max are good examples; featuring nearly
identical hull shapes with the only difference being the size; both length
and vollume. It's now common to see playboats offered in three (or more)
size ranges for small, medium and large paddlers.

It would be easy to dismiss this as marketing hype if it weren't for the
simple fact that the RPM and RPM Max are the two most popular kayak designs
ever produced for white water kayaking. In fact, when Dagger tried to drop
the line a while back they found that they couldn't do it. So many paddlers
demanded the RPM be returned to their product mix that Dagger capitulated
and put it back in the lineup.

So now a white water paddler can select a boat based on performance
requirements and not just settle for a boat that fits him (or her). So I
could watch a 150lb paddler do a few cool tricks in a playboat and go try
that playboat in my size with every expectation of having the boats perform
virtually identically regardless of the volume. It's just a matter of
scaling up or down. Volume changes but so does beam and length and cockpit
size yet performance for the larger paddler remains very close to the
performance for the smaller paddler.

I think sea kayakers and sea kayak manufacturers should be paying close
attention to this.

Historically there have been very few sea kayaks which were essentially
identical designs which were changed only to accommodate different sized
people. Matt and Cam Broze might have been the first to do this on a
production basis in the 1980s and 1990s with their Mariner Elan and Express
(and subsequent volume versions of the Express). They designed the Express
first, then modified it to a lower volume (lowered the deck), and then
reduced the volume even more for petite paddlers and called the result the
Elan. The result was one hull form with reasonably identical performance for
paddlers of different sizes.

There are also the Romany versions and several others. These, however, still
ask the paddler to make some compromises as the versions are fixed in size;
typically HV and LV If you fall between the cracks in sizes they you will
have to simply choose the best fit and hope for the best. And in most kayak
product lines the boat that fits you might have completely undesirable
performance characteristics. So if you love the performance of the "Brooks"
you might have to settle for the "Lopez" (or, worse yet, the "Moses Lake")
because nothing in the high performance range is made to fit you. You're
outta luck.

At least until recently.

Last September in Port Townsend I noticed that George Gronseth (
www.kayakacademy.com) had a few of his new design, the Illusion, in
different volumes. In fact George even had a cockpit mockup which was being
used to determine which version would best fit an individual paddler. They'd
seat the protential buyer in the mockup and then adjust the "volume" to the
point where the paddler felt most comfortable. Then Gronseth's manufacturer,
Sterling Kayaks in Bellingham, Washington, would churn out a nicely built
Illusion that not only fit the paddler precisely but would paddle pretty
much the same (for them) as a boat built for a bigger (or smaller) paddler.

Let me emphasize that the Illusion is not just offered in HV or LV (high
volume or low volume) like other designs. The Illusion is adjustable in
volume. If you need a deck height of 11-3/16 inches then you'll get a deck
height of 11-3/16 inches; not 12 and not 11.

This doesn't mean that Gronseth's Illusion will be the perfect sea kayak for
all paddlers; or even a single individual paddler. I remain convinced that
there is no such thing as the perfect "all around" kayak. I'll still want
one kayak for surfing and another kayak for long trips and yet another kayak
for rock gardens. I don't believe that will change (but we might be getting
close).

What it means, in my opinion, is that when Pam buys an Illlusion that is
sized specifically for her (this is pretty much inevitble, by the way) and
raves about it to me (also inevitable), I can buy one in the reasonable
expectation that the one I buy - sized specifically for me - will fit me
just as well as hers fits her.

There are still bound to be some differences, however. For one thing, the
length of the boat does not change and, since I'm a more powerful paddler
than Pam is, some of the performance characteristics will be different for
me than for her. And, of course, changing the volume of a boat - which means
flare changes too - means that stability factors will change. They'd change
anyway since I'm heavier and taller. Until George can adjust length and beam
along with volume, at least. You can take a look at the Illusion CV at
http://www.kayakacademy.com/catalog/Illusion.html .

I find this exciting and the trend towards customizing a boat for purpose
and size exciting. But the infinite adjustability of the Illusion is, for
me, truly innovative. Up until now you could only do this if you built your
own design or modified someone else's design (this can be problemmatic for
some designers) or did your own SOF (which Pam and I are going to do next
month at Cape Falcon Kayaks). In fact, this is more like the traditional
method of building a kayak.

Your comments and ideas are encouraged.


Craig Jungers
Moses Lake, WA
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