Differences between older and newer kayaks?

So if you read my last thread, you’ll know I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow everything I need to get started. But I’ll still have to give it back eventually. Then I’ll be trying to figure out what to buy again. The boat I’m borrowing is almost 20 years old. Most of the boats I see for sale locally are somewhere about 10 to 20 years old. My question is, how much do kayaks improve year to year on average? Do the majority of whitewater kayakers buy a new kayak every year? 2 years? 5 years? Are most people using 10+ year old stuff? How good do you have to be to really notice the improvements and be able to take advantage of them?

@DryFlyTrout said:
So if you read my last thread, you’ll know I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow everything I need to get started. But I’ll still have to give it back eventually. Then I’ll be trying to figure out what to buy again. The boat I’m borrowing is almost 20 years old. Most of the boats I see for sale locally are somewhere about 10 to 20 years old. My question is, how much do kayaks improve year to year on average? Do the majority of whitewater kayakers buy a new kayak every year? 2 years? 5 years? Are most people using 10+ year old stuff? How good do you have to be to really notice the improvements and be able to take advantage of them?

There is only some much “improvement” in paddle craft designs that have been around since…? Materials and outfitting get tweaked but, IMO, are not significant improvements in fundamental design and water performance. I still own/use my ww boats from almost 20 years ago. Work/play fine. My fishing SOTs - OK Scupper Pros - were bought used about 10 years ago and I still find them seaworthy to go striper fishing/chasing and island camping in the Boston Harbor.

The only crafts that have needed to be replaced are my foam/FG waveskis because I get tired of seeing FG patches upon patches from accumulated dings in hitting rocks at my rocky homebreak.

I think manufacturers keep touting the “latest and greatest” designs as a means to keep up sales (think car commercials). Very effective in our “consumer” oriented society.

sing

WW paddlers in general turn their boats around more frequently than long boaters, or at least used to. That could have changed.

The reason is somewhat specific to WW. When you get to sea kayaks, you will very often see changes in the first three years. That is because someone will start out in something like a rec/transition boat that feels more reassuring, then find out that it is also less friendly to skills and slower than the the boats that now feel comfortable to them. The boat hasn’t changed, the paddler demands have. But once someone gets to that first do it all sea kayak, they often do not feel the need to spend more money unless they want to do something like a surf specialty or get a lighter weight boat to car top.

WW can produce a more specialized version of that process, partly because it has been so easy to find a big array of used boats and partly because of the paddling environment. Starting out, the difference in what you as a paddler can get out of a creeker, or a play boat or a river runner or a play boat/river runner are not obvious to you. Nor do you have enough time in or on the water to know if one or the other is better suited to the places you want to paddle.

But as you progress you may find that you want a boat that will play better in holes, or fits you better for more responsive handling or is good for higher class water. The combination of changes in your own demands and a robust supply of used boats could have you making purchases.

There have been some bigger changes in WW boat designs but they are way back now, probably well over 20 years. The very old first stab at play boats, the ones that were boxy cockpits sticking up from a small pancake, were extremely difficult to roll compared to current ones. Jackson kayaks had a lot to do with that change, but now all the boats are designed with easier rolling in mind than those boats. That is not to say all current WW boats are equally forgiving of imperfect technique, but overall that is better. You see a similar shift about about 20 years ago in sea kayaks. You could roll them, and I got to where I could one out of three tries roll my first sea kayak. Then I got a Brit boats, at that time called greenland style, and hit three out of three the first time I had it in the water. I hadn’t changed, but the boat was making it a lot easier.

BTW, rolling has never been considered optional for WW because so many flatwater rescue techniques simply do not work in WW. The reason some still argue about it for long boats is that unless they are doing surf, the paddler often has the luxury of time to execute less efficient techniques.

You will know when you know that you want a boat that will do more for you in a particular area of WW paddling. This is the advantage of starting out with a group from a good WW center, that time can be shortened because your skills can come up faster and you have access to a lot o boat personalities to try. If you can find the bucks to drive somewhere good to make a weekend of classes, you won’t regret it.

I would say that there are some new designs that come along. Boats like the Danish models that Current Designs is featuring are great. I also thought their revised Caribou was nice, but it seems they’ve dropped it.

I thought the Eddyline Raven was the best boat that Eddyline ever made, but they discontinued it. I think it’s all about what sells and these days, it seems to be not so much the higher level boats. Thankfully, there are still the NCs, Stellars, Sterlings, Tiderace, Valley, P&H and some others. I just hope they will be there for the new generation of paddlers who are coming along.

@magooch
Yes, that CD Prana LV is enticing. I sat in one and would love to do a demo, although it might not be wise from a financial aspect.

BTW, interesting things going on at Eddyline. New owners recently posted: “It’s a very busy time of year here at Eddyline, and our R&D Department is working furiously to bring our newest designs to market.” My curiosity meter is running.

I think they are missing the boat if they don’t bring back the Raven, but even better, stretch it out to about 17’-2".

I realize the focus may have been on WW boats, but it’s interesting how older designs can still make for a great boat. A few months back I picked up an older Perception Eclipse in Airalite for a loaner/extra. After doing a little work to it I took it out for a little test. I was impressed with the overall ‘package’ of the boat. It really performed well and I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. A person could do worse for an all-around touring boat. My point is that older boats can be great boats depending on your taste/preference/needs.

Heck, I still LOVE my Sirocco from 2007. :smiley:

I hope they’re almost as good, since I just bought a 2001 Avocet.

magooch, l liked the old Raven, thru 2001 model. It wasn’t the best choice as a primary use boat for me at the time. But l liked it much better than the other Eddyline offerings from that era.

@Rookie said:
@magooch
Yes, that CD Prana LV is enticing. I sat in one and would love to do a demo, although it might not be wise from a financial aspect.

BTW, interesting things going on at Eddyline. New owners recently posted: “It’s a very busy time of year here at Eddyline, and our R&D Department is working furiously to bring our newest designs to market.” My curiosity meter is running.

Shorter and wider R & D

Classic boats are classic for a reason they just work

SKUK Romany-Explorer
Valley Nordkapp
North Shore Atlantic
Current Designs Gulf Stream

These are all real old designs and some of the best Sea Kayaks ever made

i love to paddle my 1984 Mariner

@JohnGoldhurst said:
Classic boats are classic for a reason they just work

SKUK Romany-Explorer
Valley Nordkapp
North Shore Atlantic
Current Designs Gulf Stream

These are all real old designs and some of the best Sea Kayaks ever made

CD
Libra XT
Nomad
Extreme
Solstice but it has been tweaked 5 years ago.

I changed the sea-lect peddles and they are as news ones today.

If you are talking about whitewater kayaks, they have changed greatly over the years. Early designs mimicked whitewater K1 slalom designs and were long, somewhat narrower, with rounded displacement hulls and pointy ends. These boats were much faster than most modern whitewater play boat designs.

As time went on, whitewater kayaks became shorter, somewhat wider, and most now have relative flat "planing hull " bottoms with a sharper chine where the hull bottom meets the side. Most of the newer whitewater boats have your knees much more splayed apart than old school designs that had your knees closer together and somewhat straighter.

But other changes in whitewater kayaks have been larger cockpits and easily adjustable outfitting. Most now come stock with adjustable back straps. With old school kayaks, you glued foam hip pads onto the seat pan sidewalls and sometimes the underside of the knee hooks and shaped the foam to fit. Many older boats did not come with back bands, although aftermarket back bands could be installed.

The larger cockpits and adjustable outfitting have been definite benefits IMO. Larger cockpits are easier to exit and present less entrapment risk, although they do require larger spray decks which make the spray skirts somewhat more prone to implode in waves. Although an excellent custom fit could often be achieved with foam, contact cement, shaping tools, and a bit of sweat equity, it is now much easier and quicker to obtain a decent fit in modern boats, and the outfitting is much more adaptable to use of the same boat by different paddlers, or use of the boat by the same paddler wearing different clothing and footwear. Blunter ends also present less risk of pitoning or a vertical pin if you anticipate running larger drops.

It is my opinion that many of the other changes that whitewater kayaks have undergone have not been beneficial to many paddlers. The newer kayaks that require ones knees to be flexed and splayed more result in a boat that is much vertically thicker and difficult to wrap the upper body around when setting up to roll. This coupled with the fact that newer boats typically need to be wider to provide the same buoyancy because they are so dramatically shorter, means that for many people modern whitewater play boats are harder to roll than many old school kayaks. The sharp chines can also really do a number on the thumb of the hand holding the paddle on the in-board blade side as it comes over the chine as the boat is rolled up. The shorter, wider boats are also much, much slower than older designs. Very short modern play boats often have little or no room for any flotation up front. Some have little or no room for above-average sized feet either. With the very short ends front and rear, the cockpit area of modern play boats takes up a much larger percentage of the entire interior volume than old school boats which had room for long bags in the stern, and small bags up front. As a result, when these boats are exited in current, the entire cockpit and bow, which takes up most of the volume of the hull, fills with water. They ride very low in the water, the bow wallows very badly, and they can be quite difficult to rescue in current. They are also more prone to get hung up.

The really short modern whitewater play boats are really designed to go nowhere, which is the intent. They are designed for acrobatic, retentive maneuvers in holes and wave troughs. The short ends make the hull much easier to turn onto its side and cartwheel, or leave flat and loop. The flat planning hulls surf nicely and allow for flat spins and 360s to be done with greater ease. And the short boats can be surfed on much shorter and steeper wave troughs than older, longer boats that had long bows that pearled much more readily. But many of the individuals paddling these boats will never throw an end or a loop. Although they may bow surf a wave now and then, they struggle with the hulls’ poor downstream efficiency the whole way down the river.

For years highly skilled whitewater paddlers used old school hulls for extreme whitewater downriver races like those held on the Green River Narrows or the upper Youghiogheny River. They picked up an old Dagger Response or Perception Pirouette because they knew those hull were much faster yet fully capable of handling serious whitewater. Manufacturers have caught on to some extent, and are now producing longer boats like the Dagger Green Boat, the Jackson Karma Unlimited (UL), and the Liquid Logic Stinger.

Thank you for all the responses so far. I know some of you took a while to think about what you wrote and I appreciate that greatly!
I think if I’m really honest with myself, getting down river is going to be more important than playing. At my age, fitness level, and condition after plowing through 30 feet of guardrail sideways I’ll never be doing super technical playboat tricks. Being able to surf and maybe spin would be great here and there as I make my way downstream.

pblanc did a great job on the changes in WW boats. As you can see, it is an area where decisions about boats can get pretty specific. But you will figure out what you want with some seat time.

@DryFlyTrout said:
Thank you for all the responses so far. I know some of you took a while to think about what you wrote and I appreciate that greatly!
I think if I’m really honest with myself, getting down river is going to be more important than playing. At my age, fitness level, and condition after plowing through 30 feet of guardrail sideways I’ll never be doing super technical playboat tricks. Being able to surf and maybe spin would be great here and there as I make my way downstream.

I agree that a higher volume, river runner is probably the best choice for you. Later on, you may consider other designs.

There is room for other more “playful” designs. I have a slicey/dicely Daggar ultrafuge that I keep in Maine because it is perfect to take to a playhole section of the Androscoggin River/Errol on a hot day to cool off by doing stupid play tricks and capsizing in the current edges. I have used that boat to “run” long sections of class II/III rivers in group paddles. These aren’t “races”, but rather an easy paddle down the river and stopping and playing at all the interesting feature sections of a ww river.

The “safety” of a a design is really a function of the individual paddler and his/her skill level. I know paddlers of Merrimack Valley (ww) Paddlers who routinely run (play) class III/IV rivers in their low volume, slicey/dicely boats. They would have not go with any other boat because they are more interested in “playing” rather than “running” a river.

sing

owner of two older (playful) slicey/dicey ww boats and a relatively newer (more mundane) river runner model - Riot Booster.

Old boats contain old paddlers.

@string said:
Old boats contain old paddlers.

I don’t know about that. My 24 yr old daughter paddles either a Pirouette S or a Mad River Howler.

Old boats contain old paddlers.