The challenging part of my work here is finding time amidst the endless stream of administrative responsibilities to actually do product development. This month I’m finally coming back around to updating the canoe sail design and making it interchangeable with my kayaks.
The basic idea here is a simple flat cut crosswind/downwind sail rig that a person without a lot of technical skill can build for a few hundred dollars in a weekend. The canoe part of this is pretty well dialed in and has been in the canoe plan for a few years, so now we just need to sort out the kayak side of things.
Kayak sailing is inherently very dangerous so the important thing here is making sure that everything works as perfectly as it possibly can.
As usual this process is a lot more perspiration than inspiration. Basically bang out a quick prototype and then just lay siege to the problem, bleeding money and time testing every potential component I can get my hands on and as many configurations as possible to figure out how I can get the best performance from the simplest possible arrangements.
If I’ve done my job right the finished product should be pretty boring, something simple that just works.
___
This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed.
See the original post and discussion here.
