I was musing on my last paddle trip about how long the modern version of the sea kayak has been around. For purposes of my inquiry I am referring to a kayak with fore and aft bulkheads, reasonably small cockpit, and deck rigging.
I bought my first kayaks (poly down river boats) in 1977 and was unaware of anything like a sea kayak existed, but I was living in a backwater of upstate New York, hardly the area for the latest and greatest of open water innovation.
That’s what happens when I paddle on open water, the mind wanders all over the place…
Thanks,
TA
I wasn’t paddling back then but I do like seeing how things develop, Some things are surprising because their was no real reason it could not be done early except the mind.
I can’t help with any personal memories. I am much too new to sea kayakaing. But here is some info I have earlier stumbled upon:
In the UK, the history starts when Ken Taylor got someone on Greenland to build an original Greenland kayak to his dimensions in 1959. Several homemade copies of this boat was made, and in 1972 the first commercial fibre glass version was made by Valley, the Anas Acuta. You can read about that here
The original Anas Acuta did neither have bulkheads nor deck perimeter lines. In this thread there are a lot of memories and (many broken) links regarding the early models. Apparently, bulkheads and deck perimeter lines were still optional when you bought a Valley sea kayak in 1985.
Perimeter deck lines and bulkheads may have been invented by Derek Hutchinson who designed kayaks for P&H and Current Design. There is apparently some controversy around that. Link.
My hope is that we haven’t seen the apogee of sea kayak design and innovation, but we do seem to be going through a period of small craft proliferation that might eventually keep the interest in more advanced paddling. It’s very discouraging seeing the demise of so many manufacturers of sea kayaks.
Basic designs will always remain the same. Even K1s, SOTs, tandems and surfskis are small innovations in the overall sport. Better materials like carbon fiber and Kevlar make for lighter and stiffer boats but still a horse by any other name is still a horse. Once a motor is attached it’s no longer a kayak but power boat.
I doubt that there will be significant changes in sea kayak design, mainly due the fact that the limited power available from a human paddler limit design options. This is a product that has evolved over thousands of years and the only truly significant changes have been due to the application of modern materials.
I suspect that kayak companies are largely victims of their own success, as quality kayaks last a long time and don’t need to be replaced often. Once the market became saturated, it dried up pretty quickly. Kayak are no longer the “water toy du jour” - that spot has been usurped by SUPs - so the number of paddlers entering the sport has declined. The “kayak boom” probably encouraged some companies to expand rapidly, then the market went soft and they were left with large, underutilized manufacturing capacity. Pricing at the higher end of the market has gotten to the point that they’re generally only affordable to “people of a certain age”, who also tend to age out of the sport fairly rapidly, making a lot of quality used boats available, which further cuts into new boat sales. Add all of this up and it’s not difficult to see why companies who produced great boats are no longer around.
@tjalmy said:
I was musing on my last paddle trip about how long the modern version of the sea kayak has been around. For purposes of my inquiry I am referring to a kayak with fore and aft bulkheads, reasonably small cockpit, and deck rigging.
I bought my first kayaks (poly down river boats) in 1977 and was unaware of anything like a sea kayak existed, but I was living in a backwater of upstate New York, hardly the area for the latest and greatest of open water innovation.
That’s what happens when I paddle on open water, the mind wanders all over the place…
Thanks,
TA
Start with the story of Valley Kayaks. valleyseakayaks.com/about Frank Goodman is no longer with us. One of the paddle magazines did an excellent article on him this year.
Here is a link to a story found in Canoe and Kayak magazine…https://canoekayak.com/tag/the-innovators/
Of course the issue early summer 2017 of Adventure Kayak is the issue to really learn about Goodman and development of the expedition sea kayak. https://rapidmedia.com/adventurekayak/categories/news/8605-issue-preview-summer-2017
You have to also look at Derek Hutchinson as part of the early sea kayak history. Here is a tribute from when he passed away, which puts some dates in on some sea kayak milestones: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/sports/derek-hutchinson-pioneer-of-sea-kayaking-as-a-sport-dies-at-79.html
The fore and aft bulkheads and deck lines didn’t seem to become a regular part of sea kayaking until the 80s or 90s. They were not there at the dawn of sea kayaking.
Of course, people were using Klepper folding kayaks back in the early 20th century. These are pretty relevant to modern touring kayak history.
@Peter-CA said:
You have to also look at Derek Hutchinson as part of the early sea kayak history. Here is a tribute from when he passed away, which puts some dates in on some sea kayak milestones: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/sports/derek-hutchinson-pioneer-of-sea-kayaking-as-a-sport-dies-at-79.htmlThe fore and aft bulkheads and deck lines didn’t seem to become a regular part of sea kayaking until the 80s or 90s. They were not there at the dawn of sea kayaking.
Of course, people were using Klepper folding kayaks back in the early 20th century. These are pretty relevant to modern touring kayak history.
I love his comment " Hold your paddle like a fairy holds her wand, not like a witch holds her broomstick."
Good point by Peter: the first commercially popular kayaks were actually touring style folders, which were not only extremely popular in Europe in the first half of the 20th century, but were used by special forces of several countries during World War II. Early recreational style short boats and even touring boats made of wood also became popular in the post-war period. I have some vintage Popular Mechanics magazines from the 1930’s through early 1950’s that include ads for patterns to make your own kayaks. Some rainy day I’ll page through them and locate those ads to post pics (the issues run 300 pages or more, dense with tiny ads.)
Folding kayaks were even promoted as “glamorous” as per this ad from 1951 (note that they were for “smarter men and lovely women”) And CWD might note the versifying below the lovely’s left hand :
And judging from the “plus four” knickers on this gallant Klepper-schlepping German kayak tourist, this ad may be pre-War – early 1950’s at most:
Back in the day you could get a “snappy” tandem for $129.
Those ads are cool, thanks for sharing.
It is worth noting that those old folding kayaks were ocean capable.
Oscar Speck paddled from Germany to Australia in a folding kayak. It took him 7 years from 1932 to 1939. (When he arrived, war between Germany and Australia had broken out, and he was imprisoned by the Australians during the whole WWII.)
Hannes Lindemann paddled across the Atlantic in a folding kayak in 1956-57. He wanted to test if he was able to cure himself if he got ill in a hostile environment. Luckily, he did get ill so the trip was not wasted.
“It is worth noting that those old folding kayaks were ocean capable.”
Well there were reed boats/rafts and dug outs too. But I don’t necessarily recommend it either.
Reed boats, rafts and dugout canoes were not only sea-worthy, they were used by ancient peoples to cross oceans to populate Australia and all of the Pacific Island groups. They also may have used skin boats and/or rafts to travel from Siberia to North America and all the way down the eastern Pacific coast to South America 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.
I had to dig a bit but this kayak was build from the popular machanics plans:
Here is a link to Ken Taylor’s blog about his 1959 trip that brought back two quajaqs built by Emmanuele Korneliusen one of which became the basis for the Anas Acuta.
https://kayakgreenland1959.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/chapter-six-variations-in-kayak-design-2/