East Coast Views:Recreational Kayaks

December 2004-January 2005

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Adam Bolonsky

Recreational kayaks are now widely available. Photos courtesy of Walden Kayaks.

Take a walk along any tidal marsh area in any coastal town, or walk down the dock at the local marina, and you’re sure to see one, or even a dozen of them—short, plastic, recreational kayaks lying ready for use, or being paddled over calm waters by happy paddlers.

Plastic recreational boat sales are currently outpacing the sale of full-blown sea kayaks in most regions of North America at a rate of about eight to one.

The most popular kid on the waterfront is typically priced at less than $800 US new, $300 used. Weighing in at around 55 pounds, most of these handy little craft can be bought equipped with anything from fore and aft hatches, to water-bottle holders, to Rhyno bars prepped for the transport or installation of fishing rods, scuba tanks, or fishfinders.

The boats are durable, fun to use, and have proven appropriate for a wide range of paddlers—energetic kids, mature birdwatchers, grunting Alaska halibut fishermen, scuba divers scouring New England coldwater nooks for lobster or sea urchin.

WHAT’S DRIVING THE TREND?

“Sea kayaking has become a highly visible and popular sport,” says a paddlesports salesman at REI, one of the largest purveyors of outdoors equipment in North America. “The sport’s popularity has spread to the not-your-typical outdoors person. These buyers are finding they don’t want to invest $2,500 to buy a fully-equipped sea boat. They’re family people—moms and dads, people who view kayaks as family fun, good to take out to the lake or the cottage for vacation. They don’t necessarily want to take a paddle clinic with Derek Hutchinson or Nigel Foster. They want to get into kayaking at low-cost and without getting overly technical about it.

Kids have a whale of a time in small kayaks.

Take Rhode Island’s Paul Brais, who recently purchased a 12’ Perception Airlite and 10’ Wilderness. “I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on kayaks until I knew how much we would use them. We’ve since discovered that my wife and I enjoy paddling. We’ll likely upgrade.”

Or consider the route taken by Jim DeCourcy, a Massachusetts canoeist who is now the owner of a 17’ fiberglass Impex Susquehanna but who began kayaking with a 9’ long, 29” wide Aquaterra Keowee.

“My canoe was too heavy to load and unload by myself. But it was not much trouble to throw that thirty-six pound Keowee in the back of my hatchback or carry it the couple hundred yards to the pond across my street. The boat was indestructible, too, and cheap—$300 for the boat, skirt and paddle. How could I go wrong?”

Faith McGrath, from Connecticut, is a member of ConnYak.org, Connecticut’s 400-member-plus paddling organization. McGrath owns and paddles a BoréalDesign Ellesmere as her oceangoing seaboat, but also has an Ocean Kayak ScupperPro she stores on the beach at Long Island Sound. McGrath uses the ScupperPro for short trips on the Sound in summer and early fall, for quick paddles after work, and lends it out to friends and guests.

“The plastic boat is low maintenance and it’s got two good- sized hatches bow and stern, and a small stash hatch in the center console.

“When people visit and want to go kayaking, it fits multiple body types. Short, tall, fat, thin. People with a fear of cockpits feel comfortable in it. You can get a small child with PFD on in it with you, and still paddle.” Its large open cockpit is perhaps its most important attribute.

But with the influx of new paddlers buying recreational kayaks comes new responsibilities, says Joel Thomas, owner of New England Small Craft (www.nesmallcraft.com), a kayaking specialty shop in Rowley, Massachusetts.

As owner, Thomas can set his own sales policies. He’s critical of the so-called big box retailers who have begun to sell rec boats and who ‘qualify’ kayak purchasers only according to the customer’s available credit card balance.

“We qualify our customers by making sure they’re outfitted with appropriate gear,” says Thomas. “Every recreational we sell leaves our shop with flotation installed by us if it doesn’t already have it. No big-box retailer does this. And every PFD we sell gets a safety whistle attached to it.”

The trend towards recreational kayaks is due to a lot of factors, Thomas says, especially the fun factor, the ‘X-ingredient’. Recreational kayak buyers represent the growing edge of kayaking as a form of simpler, less technical, on-water recreation. Thomas suggests some paddlers, including the growing number of formal paddling organizations, have lost track of this in recent years.

Adam Bolonsky is WaveLength’s new East Coast Correspondent!

“Paddling clubs,” he says, “must address the needs and interests of these less technically-oriented paddlers—the kids, the families, the mature birdwatchers who are buying ten-foot puddle-jumpers at a rate far surpassing that of fiberglass sea kayaks.”

“A kayak is a kayak,” he concludes, “pointy at both ends. A spot someplace near the middle to sit. Short, long, sit-in, sit-on, plastic rec boats or kevlar surfskis—they’re all kayaks.” At the end of the day, what we all share is a passion for paddling, whatever boat we love to paddle.

© Adam Bolonsky is WaveLength’s new East Coast Correspondent. Adam is a native New England sea kayaking instructor and sea kayak fishing guide based in Gloucester, Massachusetts. He will be helping with WaveLength’s East Coast Special Issue next summer (deadline June 20, 2005) and he welcomes east coast story ideas and submissions: Adam@WaveLengthMagazine.com

Editor’s Note: If you’re interested in recreational kayaks, be sure to watch for our upcoming ‘Cruising With Kayaks’ feature (Feb/Mar 2005) in which we look at compact and folding kayaks suitable for boaters. Submissions deadline Dec. 20, 2004.