Outriggers on kayaks and canoes.

I’ve been overwhelmed lately by clients wishing to add a single outrigger to their fishing kayak for stabilization and to add a small gas motor. Also, the most popular kit I offer is outriggers on both sides of a canoe. To help me understand what fishermen are looking for and better serve your needs, let me ask you a few questions. If you plan to put a gas motor on your yak, how important is a pedal drive? Does an outrigger get in the way of landing a fish and if so, how would you see fit to solve the issue? And finally, I know you guys LOVE your fishing kayak but this has had me scratching my head for a while… If your fishing kayak is worth $3000 and you want to add one of my outrigger kit to it to stabilize the thing, Why wouldn’t you just sell your used kayak and buy a new 16 foot Expandacraft modular catamaran for half that price? Seriously, I know I’m bias if favor of my design but it seems like it would be easier to sell a whole modular craft to a fisherman than to retrofit a one sided outrigger to an already expensive kayak. Any thoughts?




Canoes and kayaks are nice and portable. Why would anyone add outriggers, other than possibly for ocean travel.
Get a well designed canoe/kayak and learn proper paddling strokes

I started with one reply last night and I never finished it and I never posted it, but somehow it ended up here. I deleted that half-written stuff, but I thought of something else. Given the “set-up” style of your questions and attached photos, I’d call this a thinly disguised work of advertising, putting images of your largely-unknown product on a well-used message board and not even paying a dime for the privilege. While what you’ve done is not technically “wrong”, there are plenty of vendors who advertise on this site by normal means, and no one ever looks highly on people who do it your way.

Seems like a " let’s see just how complicated we can make this simple craft " kind of approach. The photo of the motorized canoe, with two outriggers, and four occupants, smacks of " why didn’t I just buy a flats boat ". What ever happened to the expression " keep it simple " ??

Photo #3–standing on a 12" platform without a PFD is not a good idea. PFD’s should not be used as cushions as in the 2nd photo.

The caption could be, “Unregistered craft in the water at the Common Good Park boat ramp in Ruskin Florida.”