Modern Sea Kayak history...

Thank you all for the interesting responses. I’ll ponder on these while I go paddling on a chilly morning on Sunday. Thinking of hitting the Silver and looking for the monkeys.

Major design change or creative innovations for a sea kayak?

"A unique feature of this kayak is a rudder that folds down into the deck. This makes the kayak far safer for someone rescuing the kayak and paddler.

“The other unique feature being a self bailer. This is fitted to the cockpit area and it is possible to empty a relatively full cockpit in under a hundred strokes.”

http://www.seakayakinguk.com/sea-kayak-range/the-quantum

cool rudder idea. Always strikes me how seemingly simple ideas take so long to develop on many different industries. Like the rudder here it nothing prevents it from being manufactured decades ago. I look at heavy equipment like rough terrain telescopic forklifts. It’s all in design and most could have been done decades ago also. They are basically steel and hydraulics that could have been done so long ago.

@willowleaf said:
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 :

That is a Folbot Super in the ad. I built one from a kit in 1980. It was great when our kids were younger.

@willowleaf said:
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.

Of course we should allow that many tried and died in those boats. Something of a bummer in recreational kayaking.

My dad made kayaks from barrel staves, canvas, and “dope”. It was the early 1930’s. He said he could make one for $5.00. I asked him what he made back then, he paused and reflected…he said he would make between .05 and .10/hr.
That’s a pretty expensive kayak!!

“Of course we should allow that many tried and died in those boats. Something of a bummer in recreational kayaking.”

People die everyday around the world in all sorts of modern boats that we would consider “safe” – water travel is full of dangers. The fact that some ancient seafarers may have died during their voyages doesn’t mean that their craft were not very seaworthy.

Like the Edmund Fitzgerald.

@willowleaf said:
“Of course we should allow that many tried and died in those boats. Something of a bummer in recreational kayaking.”

People die everyday around the world in all sorts of modern boats that we would consider “safe” – water travel is full of dangers. The fact that some ancient seafarers may have died during their voyages doesn’t mean that their craft were not very seaworthy.

It means that you can go out in a rec kayak, 30 inches wide, in 3 ft seas with 20 mph winds in the dead of winter and survive, maybe. But if I were me, which I am, I’m going to build up my changes with modern configuration of sea kayak and clothing.

The most sophisticated “modern configurations” of sea kayak and clothing are still largely based on the designs and features developed and perfected by trial and error by ancient peoples. My most seaworthy boat is a careful replica of a hunting kayak built nearly 90 years ago by a native Greenlander. It’s the stubby rec boats that are a modern innovation ( if you can call them that.)

@willowleaf said:
My most seaworthy boat is a careful replica of a hunting kayak built nearly 90 years ago by a native Greenlander.

Can you tell more about that? Was it copied recently, or was the copying also done 90 years ago? Commercial or home built?

I am trying to find out if a native Greenland design was copied earlier that Ken Taylor’s kayak which is mentioned above.

Mine was built in 2008 but is based on Harvey Golden’s survey of a native boat that was collected in Sisimuit, Greenland, in 1935.

http://capefalconkayak.com/1935sisimuit.html

You might want to try to contact Brian Schulz (from whose website I cut and pasted that link) and pick his brain about the history of skin on frame kayak building. It’s a subject that interests him a lot and he has been one of the most prolific builders and teachers of SOF construction in recent years.

It would be interesting to learn more about where the earliest commercial makers of sea kayaks derived their basic designs.

Another bit of vintage kayak history – this is an ad in a 1935 “Popular Mechanics” magazine that I have. It’s from a company in Chicago that invites home-builders to assemble Klepper-style “ki-yaks” for re-sale.

Love the ad - and that “$6 paddle now given with your Ki-Yak” But only if you hurry.

Found this pic of one of the Mead Ki-yaks set up with sale and pontoon options. Apparently a skin-on-frame kit that they advertise as taking 9 hours to put together. Probably a canvas skin with a paint or oil-based “dope” coating it – the Mead company also made glider planes that had similar construction. Very much like the rigid Kleppers of the era.


Kind of looks like the boat Urness used in the 50’s during his paddle trip from Montana to Florida.

Cool!