so no peeing in the boat, huh?
There’s something unnerving about having your lower body exposed to sea creatures or humans while paddling.
makes sense
my favorite color is light seattle gray, it’s easy on my eyes.
There’s lot’s of ways to meet conflicting goals of safety and a preference for low visibility.
Make the aft deck a bright color, make the aft hatch cover a bright color(and cover when on shore), wear bright colors, wear a flourescent orange hunting cap, make the hull a bright color with a dull deck, paddle in areas where high visibility isn’t a priority, apply 4’x4’ reflective patches(in daylight they blend with gray deck) etc.
Kayak Color is
can be a hot topic, but it all comes down to where you paddle and what you want to do.
Some folks think their yellow/orange boats somehow make them invulnerable to boating accidents. Others think they’ll be able to sneak up and pet the wildlife with their camo boats.
Certainly bright/unnatural colors are more visible at a distance, but unless the water is pretty calm and there is someone actively looking for small craft, it may be marginally useful to buy those colors. I often see the upper body or paddle movements before the kayak itself.
I have yellow, lime, and an olive green boat. The olive green is the best for wildlife, but I think mainly because it has better glide. I can head for the bank and stop paddling farther out. They seem to respond to motion and sound much more than the color.
You’ll get over the scratches hangup (hopefully).
Often small inlets or washouts double as good landings and good hiding spots, so getting a boat out of sight is usually not too bad. With a dark color or camo color, you just have to get into the trees a little.
jim
I really like my
Kevlar Bell canoe which is sort of a green and black weave.
Apparently a lot of other people do also. The only boat I have gotten more comments on is my home built wood kayak.
Bright colors = safety
I used to work a lot with the Coast Guard in AK. They once showed a training video whare CG helos were trying to spot an orange boat and couldn’t - point of the video was that one should always carry some sort of signalling device and not assume that a rescue helo is going to see your orange/yellow/lime green boat.
Just food for thought.
safety would dictate yellows and oranges
Visibility is important to me so that my boat can be seen if rescue is needed or if a power boat would prefer to avoid running me over. I’ve noted that lime green, yellow, orange boats show up better at distance and in fading light.
My ww boats are also bright so as to be spotable in foam etc…
good point, active/passive
there’s a point at which passive devices, no matter how superduper, aren’t sufficient.
Yup
I’d certainly rather help effect my own rescue than sit patiently in my day-glo boat, waiting for the CG helo that can’t see me.
An array of measures
Anyone relying on only one element (especially a passive one) for rescue has a greater belief in god’s positive intervention than I.
In case of the need for rescue I nearly always carry a VHF radio, cell phone, flares, lights, whistle/horn, etc…
Brightly colored boats are more visible than neutral color ones. This is to help avoid collision as much as anything.
To stand out from all the others?
For utility, safety is the main driving force I can think of. Yellows and neons for this purpose.
Here with high UV and many sunny days, I avoid red in automobiles and kayaks because it oxidizes faster than other pigments.
Other than that, I guess you might choose a color simply because it’s different from “most others.” I know someone who owns a lavender-decked sea kayak; she thought it would be darker and was not pleased when the real thing arrived. However, I can honestly say that I have NEVER seen another composite sea kayak of that hue.
If visibility were not important to me, I would choose either OT’s natural-looking speckled “granite” or a light turquoise.
dark colors
are much hotter in the summer. if that’s a concern, go with an off white. i have a blue and get by with a spray skirt with good venting. i also splash water on the hull to cool it off. do an experiment… when it’s really hot out, sit down in a light blue boat seat and see how badly you get burned… then see how cool to the touch a white seat is…
SUPER COLORS AT NC
If you want to look at how certain colors look on a kayak go to the NC Kayak siye at:nckayak.com/ and check out there color preveiwwe that lets you see what your boat would look like with a fadfe paint job or a two tone.
I recently purchase an NC Expedition 19 from them with a deck that fades from brighrt orange tp navy blue and a yellow hull. It alos has a bright yellow combing and florissant decals.
I recieved it just before Thanksgiving and had it out on Lake Michigan in the ice, snow and cold the next weekend.
I’m on cloud nine, because it’s the first time I’ve been out since I enlisted 25 years ago.
But check out their color examples too. I feel the a bright boat is a safe boat if you like to paddle alone or like rough water.
Some one told me that the reason they got a white hull on their boat because it’s easier to see cracks or what ever their reason was. But to me a bright hull is easier to spot if it’s capsized.
Joel
Black
I think a black kayak is to die for beautiful to look at!!! About a year or so back there was one listed here for sale, a Capella 161 EXACTLY what I wanted!!! And on sale!! Did I get it? Nope. Where I live, black boats = hot boats. So as much as I wanted it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay in it long paddling around here. My boats are: a granite capella plastic and a lime Mystic.
it’s what’s up top that matters most
From a visibility/safety standpoint, the truth is that your kayak color is a secondary consideration to the colors of your paddle and your lifejacket.
In an approaching powerboat - especially those that are low to the water - your boat might be lost in the trough of a wave, but if you’re wearing a yellow or orange (or red, third choice…) pfd and are using a paddle with yellow, orange, or white blades, the colors combined with the additional height off the water surface makes you pop out against the background of the water. That’s particularly true with paddles - when I’m sailing Lake Michigan rather than paddling, it’s usually the flash of paddle blades in the distance that pulls my eye to noticing that there’s a kayak out there.
black/black
BRG seam. she’s a beauty.
shows every scratch, dent, ding and love bite ever suffered. gets warm in the summer but not so much so here in NE that it’s a big concern.
can’t see her at night or at any distance and the only time she really stands out is in surf and white water…which given my proclivites is plenty!
hell, enough of everything else i have on is come save my ass orange and it’s me i care about waaaay more than the boat…odds are if i need to be rescued, i most likely won’t be WITH the boat…my radio, flares, strobes and sense are all of appropriate hue and on me though.
and SOLAS
on paddle, boat and pfd.
kayak color
I frequently go kayaking with my son. He has a yellow yak. I have a blue yak. We’ve both observed that the yellow yak appears to be a “magnet” for flying insects. I guess to them it’s just a big yellow flower. My son wants to get rid of the yellow yak for a different color.
Any others out there make a similar observation?
Reflective tape is WAY overrated …
– Last Updated: Dec-24-08 3:09 PM EST –
... for paddling use. Neat stuff, but unless you've got boaters with headlights, or are hoping for a nightime helicopter rescue where it may help the rescue swimmer orient to you under the helo's spotlight, it's not gonna do much.
It's good for road signs, semi trailers, and the small stuff you might need to find around your campsite by flashlight (not coincidentally how users tend to evaluate the effectiveness stuff is by shining flashlights on it and each other).
Bright color kayaks are also overrated. Mostly useful for spotting by air. Something few of us will ever need (and the others know who they are). Maybe good for visibility in traffic too!
Paddling a yellow kayak is like driving on a yellow highway. Best reason to buy those colors is you like them enough to have in your visual field all day.
Me, I've had 2 yellow, 2 bright green, an orange, a red, a turquoise, a blue, a brown - and am happiest with a light gray over white.
Light enough to look nearly white from a distance, just gray enough to cut down the glare. Sun is big factor here. Boat traffic is another, and that color also seems to get the most respect/least issues from other boaters. It looks like a boat and not a playground toy. When both they and I are thinking and acting as boaters - things go smoother. Nobody does anything weird because they spot a "speedbump". Just sayin'...
Lots of reasons to pick whatever, wherever but safety through dayglo visibility isn't high on my kayak color priority list. I do wear a bright PFD (hard not to given available choices and heat issues with darker ones), and sometimes bright hat. Just as often a dull hat. Paddles mostly invisible black or neutral brown.
Exactly…
…especially with regard to being in the trough of the wave. And that gets amplified when you’re higher up and/or the waves are higher. In the CG video I was referring to, a kayaker in a yellow boat was barely visible from a helo at 500 feet (which is low, anyway). It wasn’t until the bird was very close could the person be made out, and the thing that popped into view first and stayed brightest was the individual’s orange Mustang suit.
My boat is a black Feathercraft Wisper, but I have a yellow drytop, yellow PFD, and carry flares, VHF, and a cell phone.