NEWSLETTER

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KAYAK VISIBILITY

There is a universal complaint about kayaks from the general marine community - they're hard to see on the water. Usually this occurs under daylight conditions since this is when nearly all kayak/boating interactions occur. The problem is that a kayak is small and low on the water, and quite often has a hull color that blends either with the water or with erratic whitecaps. A solution, I believe, is to add visibility enhancement to the most visible part of a kayak, the paddle blades, which are the highest part above the water and are also in constant motion.

One way of doing this is to put strips of orange-red fluorescent tape on the paddle blades. This tape has the property of appearing much brighter than most backgrounds and also responds to miscellaneous sources of diffused light rather than requiring closely directed illumination as does the common silver reflective material made for automotive purposes. More exactly, while reflective materials respond only when directly illuminated by something like a headlight, fluorescent materials respond to ordinary daylight by always appearing brighter than their surrounding ambient.

I acquired some of this material to see how well, in fact, it does work as a visibility enhancement while on the water and have been encouraged by positive comments by most people who have observed it. I have to emphasize that this material is useful only in daylight and perhaps into early dusk. For night-time visibility you must use the reflective materials and hope there is someone nearby with a bright light or, better, you were wise enough to carry your own bright light.

Here are some details of my application. I cut the fluorescent tape into 2 inch wide strips and contoured them to fit inside the curved shape on all four surfaces of the paddle blades, avoiding generous areas which are exposed to scrapes when using the paddle as a brace while entering or exiting the kayak. In all, I managed to get 36 square inches on the power face and 30 on the back face of each blade. After joining an evening trip which continued through dusk into dark, I think that while night visibility isn't a commonly occurring problem, never-the-less it's worth having a smaller amount of silver reflective tape on the blades and so found space for about 11 square inches of that material on all four surfaces. The material I used has survived three and one-half seasons of ocean kayaking without problems.

The tape I acquired is a 3M product marketed by their Commercial Graphics Division, called ScotchCal Film series 210, orange-red fluorescent with adhesive backing. It's used mainly in the sign industry for window displays, emergency vehicles, and the like, and is available only in commercial quantities from distributors who serve that market. In the Boston area it's stocked by New England Sign Supply, Woburn, Ma, who sell it in rolls of various widths and lengths. The smallest is a roll 15" wide by 10 yards long, with perforated edges that give a usable width of 14". It cost about $85.00 with tax (yr 2000 price). For those who might be interested in acquiring some in manageable quantities for their own use I offer to sell my remaining stock in sheets 14" wide by 12" long at about my cost; contact me at al.goldberg@alum.mit.edu.

Automotive-style reflective tape is available in retail quantities from some automotive and hardware stores, and from REI. I believe that from REI costs about $.75/ft in a 2 inch width. There is also a variation of the silver automotive tape that the Coast Guard sanctions, which has a more shiny reflective surface making it partially responsive to well-angled sunlight but not useful at all under diffuse lighting.

Before ending I'd like to pass on a couple of comments from a member of the boating community. A sailboat while heeled over from the wind doesn't have a good view from its leeward side, nor does a powerboat on a high plane see well directly ahead. It's a good idea, then, for kayakers to use appropriate tactics as an encounter develops on the water. While obvious, these are things of which I was not aware and haven't seen any mention in the kayaking literature.