MICRONAUTICAL BOAT DESIGN

England was the cradle of many inventions, including the motorized W fishing kayak, and by that we mean outboard gas engine, and not electric trolling motor  🙂

It was Jim McGilvray, from Wroxham, UK, who had the idea of outfitting a 2007 W300 fishing kayak with a 2.5 hp Suzuki outboard motor. He realized his idea, and this is how it looked:

The 2007 W300 was a small, narrow W kayak, and Jim needed to add a pair of outriggers to his motor-kayak, since that thing was going a bit too fast for its size, or one may argue that it was flying too low… 😀
Safety first!

More about this DIY kayak motorizing project project >>

More about motorizing fishing kayaks >>

Jim’s kayak outriggers are his own design, and he made them all by himself.

Ergonomics has to do with comfort, and ergonomic kayak design implies that the person using the kayak should be comfortable being in it, and using it.
But Ergonomics is also about bio mechanics, or more specifically bio mechanical engineering, which has to do with how the user operates the kayak, their effective range of motion, and how effectively they can propel the kayak without getting injured or tired doing so.
When fishing kayaks are concerned, ergonomics and bio mechanics are related to questions such as how hard it is for an angler to cast from the kayak, is it possible for them to fish from it for more than a short time without feeling back pain, tingling and numbness in their legs.

Other questions may be how hard it is to enter the kayak when launching it, and hard it is to get out when beaching, how difficult is it to balance the kayak in case you’re standing on it and attempting to fish, and more.

The best reference related to the fundamental issue of back pain is an article called Lumbar Spine and Kayak Back Pain, from which we brought this excerpt:

 

As you can see, the lumbar spine consists of rigid vertebrae and more flexible cartilage between them. This part of the spine supports the combined weight of the upper part of the body, including the torso, head and arms, and it is normally supported by the massive structure of the hip bones below.
In other words, in its natural state, there is nothing that pushes, holds, or supports the lumbar spine from any direction except from its top and bottom, and what holds it in this normal position are the muscles around it.

How Did the Lumbar Spine Become a Problem for Kayak Fishermen and Paddlers?

The native people of the arctic, who originally created the first kayaks were used to sit down on the floor with their legs stretched forward, and therefore didn’t have any use for additional support for their lumbar spine. This is why native kayaks did not feature a backrest, or any other ‘lumbar support’.
When Westerners began paddling those aboriginal kayaks they noticed they had problems staying upright with their legs stretched forward, in the posture known as the L position. This is because they were not used to sitting in this position in everyday life, and the muscles in their body weren’t adjusted to it. Rather than adjusting the paddler to the kayak, designers and manufacturers decided it would be easier to try and adapt the kayak to the paddler, and introduced a combination of backrest and footrests designed to lock the kayakers in the L position, and prevent their upper body from ‘falling’ backward or sliding forward (‘slouching’).
The kayak paddler, or fisherman is effectively ‘supported’ by three rigid points anchored in the kayak: two footrests and one back rest. By continuously pushing against those three points, the kayak fisherman’s legs provide the power necessary to maintain his body in its place, and in the required posture.

Some anglers are asking themselves questions such as which fishing kayak to choose, and whether the much hyped pedal drives available on the market are any good for their purpose.
The subject is broad, and already discussed in depth and detail in the article about fishing kayaks’ pedal drives that we’ve already mentioned here, on Micronautical.
This time, we’d like to add a few words about what it feels like to pedal a fishing kayak –

Pedal propulsion for small watercraft has been in use since the 19th century, and it’s still commonly found in small recreational boats, often in a combination of rotating pedals with paddle wheel type propellers. Other types of pedal driven propulsion systems for small craft include rotating propellers, hydraulic pumps, sideways moving flaps, add-on systems, and more. Interestingly, the world speed record for a human powered watercraft is held by a catamaran equipped with a rotational air propeller.
Currently, there are three kayak manufacturers offering pedal driven kayaks. Two of them offer kayaks featuring a combination of rotational pedals with a rotational propeller, and one manufacturer offers a drive featuring push pedals combined with flaps moving from side to side, in a back and forth motion. The latter will be simply called ‘flaps’ in this article.
All three kayak pedal drives are fixed, which means they provide propulsion without steering, and therefore, the kayak operator is required to track and turn using a hand activated rudder.
All three pedal drive systems feature pedals located in proximity to each other, along the kayak’s center line, and at a higher point than the kayak seat. In order to activate the pedals in all three, kayakers have to relocate their feet away from the low footrests situated on both sides of the hull.

Part 1. Pedaling Kayaks’ Ergonomics –

-How Does It Feel To Operate a Pedal Driven Kayak?

The first and main argument in favor of pedaling kayaks instead of paddling them, is that our legs are far more powerful than our arms are, and therefore it makes more sense to use our legs for difficult tasks such as propulsion, rather than using our arms.

While being generally true, this argument is not necessarily applicable to the propulsion of kayaks. This is because although our legs have the biggest and most powerful muscles in our body, and are best fit for hard, long lasting efforts, using them for propelling any vehicle must be done under certain conditions, which are dictated by our own built, and ability to endure certain types of effort –

Before everything, and after all – we’re talking about human powered propulsion, and viewing it through a narrow prism of horsepower (or lack thereof, actually) is reductive ad absurdum.
Which is why this article rightfully asks the question ‘how does it feel to pedal a fishing kayak’, and provides a good answer as well.
Speed is the most overrated attribute when fishing kayaks are concerned, and pedal driven kayaks aren’t even fast, being mostly wide and heavy sit-on-top and hybrid ‘barge’ kayaks.

Camouflaging your fishing kayak can be important for some fishing applications, and it’s particularly important if you’re hunting from it.
John Fabina, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, specializes in designing camouflage patterns for his fishing and hunting kayaks.

There area various methods and products used for camouflaging a kayak, including painting it with special patterns in special colors, and attaching natural and man made stuff to it.
This is an example of a fishing kayak that’s camouflaged for duck hunting using natural grass and palm leaves:

 

 

More on camouflaging your fishing kayak >>

It’s a painful question for many kayak anglers!
Sit-in, SOT and hybrid fishing kayaks are sometimes designed with an intention to alleviate the pain felt by anglers who use them, especially back pain, or at least this is what their manufacturers proclaim.
In reality, there’s very little that can be done to take care of this critical problem, and nothing to solve it at its root, which is the way kayaks are in the first place, and the way we are: People who no longer sit on the floor with our legs stretched in front of us, as we used to sit long ago, before chairs, stools, and other elevated seats were introduced to our life.
We are members of modern societies, and as such, we sit on elevated seats, and we’ve lost the ability to sit comfortably with our legs stretched in front of us, which is what traditional kayaks as well as hybrid fishing kayaks force us to do.
More foam in the seat’s backrest doesn’t solve anything, really, and elevating the seat doesn’t solve any problem either, because those kayaks aren’t stable enough to sustain a decrease in their users’ stability as a result of their center of gravity going up. The result is that people who sit on higher seats attached to those mon-hull fishing kayaks (sit-in, SOT and hybrid) feel less stable, and increase the pressure of their legs on the footrests and backrest between which they are trapped. The result: more back pain.

Here’s a quote from an article about kayaking back pain:
“Pain is usually initiated by stimulation of the peripheral nervous system, that is the nerves in various parts of our body. These nerves are connected through the spinal nerve to our brain, where we become aware of the pain.

The Nerves Involved In Kayak Back Pain, Leg Pain, Etc.

The sciatic nerve is a large nerve fiber that begins in the lower back and runs through the buttock and down the lower limb. It is the longest and widest single nerve in the human body. The sciatic nerve supplies nearly the whole of the skin of the leg, the muscles of the back of the thigh, and those of the leg and foot. It is derived from spinal nerves L4 (in Lumbar vertebra # 4) through S3 (in Sacral vertebra #3) in the lower part of our spine.

Meaning of Back Pain When You’re Kayaking, or Kayak Fishing

Any unpleasant sensation you feel in your body while kayaking or fishing from your kayak, is a sign that something is wrong, so you need to pay attention to it, and do something about it:
Your legs getting numb means you should change positions, stretch, get up, and get things in order.
Pain in your legs, or your lower back means something is seriously wrong, and you’re either risking physical damage, or actually causing it just by being seated in the L position, whether you’re paddling, resting, or fishing…”

Interestingly, the pain created in your back gets exacerbated the more your legs push on the footrests. This unwanted process is increased when you’re seated in a pedal driven fishing kayak, and your legs constantly and energetically push the pedals, for a long time. Since your legs are required to perform this task from the center of the deck, and your feet lose the little stabilizing effect they have when the rest in the footrests located on the sides, the instability you feel increases even more, and so is the pressure…