Couldn’t have said it better myself
Even if he were only paddling, the whole “security and protection” of a sink is only in one’s mind. And for a fishing yak, a SOT is almost always going to be preferable.
And the polynesians sailed outrigger
canoes thousands of miles. But today, given the choice of making that kind of journey in an outrigger canoe or a Royal Norwegian cruise ship, which do you think they’d take? Inuits used sealskin-on-frame SINKs because that is all they had the technology to build. That doesn’t make a SINK an inherently better fishing paddlecraft than a SOT. I’ll bet there are plenty of Inuit out there who would take a WS Tarpon 160 SOT and Goretex drysuit over a traditional sealskin on frame and traditional caribou or sealskin clothing. And a fishing SOT is not a rec boat. It is a fishing SOT, nor is it a short distance boat. I know plenty of guys who paddle their 16’ fishing SOTs out miles out into the Gulf to fish for sharks, snapper, ling, and kings. And then paddle back. Fishing SOTs may not have hit it big in Canada because of perceptions about “security and protection”, but they are well-utilized down here.