Over the last decade, kayaking market has significantly grown to include wide variety of kayaks ranging from as small as 5-feet kayaks for white water kayaking to as long as 24’ kayaks for long distance ocean kayaking. Although kayaks have opened a whole new world for the outdoor enthusiast, in our recent conversation with Prof. Michael Schill (who is a local kayaking enthusiast), we identified two issues. These issues highlighted the extent to which a person is limited by transportation requirement for kayaks.
1. Kayaks launched in rivers like James River require pick up services on the downstream end of the launch. One way this could be resolved is by taking a car upstream to launch and then leaving another car downstream however the limitations are that two cars are needed and both the cars need to be equipped with kayak racks. Other way is to have someone provide drop off and pick up services. This process could be inconvenient if river is far away or if there are no pick up services available.
2. Some places where the closest parking spot is far away from the launching spot require the kayaks to be physically transported. This could be a challenge when kayaks are heavy or are over 15’ long. These situations could be specially restricting for parents of young kids. We believe that even though several solutions are available, none is particularly feasible to support the free spirit nature of the kayaking/canoeing activity. Provide hands free transportation of kayaks and canoes. Great for parents who wants to either carry kids in arms, hold hands or just carry some other gear/paraphernalia with them
2. Provide a light trailer that could be easily and quickly folded in small backpack. The backpack could be easily carried in a small kayak without the need to carry the trailer back to car.
3. Provide a mechanism to tow single or multiple kayaks/canoes behind a bike so that cars could be parked downstream and kayaks could be taken upstream.
