On this site you can find testreports of seakayaks. In 1986 Willem Molengraaff started with testing seakayaks; first together with Arie Kreuk and later with me, René van der Zwan. Since Willem was, due to his age and lower back-problems, not able to carry on with kayaking, he had to stop in 2005. Since then I carry on testing; keeping close contact with Willem.
In the reports we try to be as objective as possible while describing the characteristics of seakayaks. We try this by stabilising the context in which we test the kayak: As a reference we used always the same kayak (Willem's Breeze) and tested always in the same area: the "Voordelta" near the "Aardappelenbult" next to Ouddorp. While testing, we regularly changed kayaks. A reference-point was also our own experience, although we cannot deny that we have grown over the years: paddling different kayaks all the time. To make the tests uniform we also started using a detailed checklist.
It is our intention with the testreports to be independent, without any commercial
interference nor profit. Quite a lot of the reports has been published in the
magazine "Kanosport" from the Dutch Kajak Association (NKB). After some years
the publishing went to the bulletin of the Seakayak-division of the NKB and
since 2000 we publish new tests on this website. Since 2004 we include also
information of kayaks not yet tested.
We try to bring a complete survey of seakayaks and their characteristics.
Our purpose is to present information to seakayakers, planning to buy a kayak, making it possible to compare kayaks and to determine if a particular kayak matches your competence. As choosing a kayak is a very personal matter, we promote very obvious that readers never should buy a kayak only having read our reports. We advise always to try a kayak yourself: it is very important you feel comfortable and at home in a kayak.
Our starting-point in testing is safety in particular. That's WHY we want to find out how a kayak performs in cold and/or bad weather. We think this approach is necessary because every kayak will perform good in easy circumstances. It is just when the weather turns bad and the distance til "when things can go wrong" becomes smaller, that it is important that a seakayak ITSELF should NOT cause you to get into trouble.
Please be aware that some kayaks, as tested, are not yet in production anymore.
However we leave them at the site anyway, because it can be informative looking
at the behaviour of different seakayaks.
Also these reports have some historical value: just to record how the evaluation
of (Dutch) seakayaks in general has been.
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René van der Zwan
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Willem Molengraaff
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