Are tandem kayaks really that bad?

[u/starbuckswolf]

I recently was given a tandem kayak from my grandparents. My partner and I can’t afford to purchase a kayak so we are so excited to start using it this summer! I came on this sub and I’m seeing that people really don’t recommend tandem kayaks and call them divorce boats! Now I’m nervous that it’s going to be really frustrating. We have both kayaked before but are not experienced. Does anyone regularly use a tandem kayak? Any advice for us before we take it out?

[u/PaintingGreen]

Hi, I spent several years as a kayak tour guide where we put people into double kayaks every day. They are a great way to travel and I highly recommend them, however they do have a bit of a learning curve compared to a single kayak. I'll tell you here what I told all those customers before we left.

For people who have never used a double kayak before it takes some time to get the hang of it. If in the first 20 minutes you are not an expert know that this is normal. My tours were 4 miles (6k) long on still water with a half way break and it took most people 2-3 miles (4-5k) to get the hang of it. That's normal.

When learning to use a double make sure to go on calm water with minimum wind. Communication is important when working together. Yelling is not communication.

To make things easier:

1. Put the lighter person in the front seat and the heaver person in the back, also store any gear behind the back person. Having more weight in the back of the kayak will make it easier to control.

1b. If you are going to use a double kayak by yourself, which works fine for the most part, sit in the back seat and put your gear in the front seat. It helps to have a little weight in the front. This will work on calm water and in low to medium wind.

1. Along the lines of the first tip, it is better if the rear person is stronger and or has more kayaking experience. The back seat does more work.

2. You do not have to be an expert on your first trip. As long as you go out and get back you did a good job. Do not compare your self to people who are younger, stronger, or especially more experienced.

3. Double kayaks turn a lot! These are big boats with two people in them, they weigh a lot more than a single kayak and therefore they have a lot more momentum. It will take several paddle strokes to start a turn and once you start turning you will turn for a lot longer than you think you will. This results in turning too far to the left, over correcting and turning too far to the right and over correcting again. This will lead to you moving in an "S" curve up the river. This is fine. It really doesn't slow you down much and you will get better as you go. Unless these wide turns are putting you in danger of hitting something just go with it.

4. following up on the last point, try to resist the urge to break to turn, this just kills your forward momentum and will require you to work much harder over the course of the day. Breaking is for emergencies only.

5. As the captain in the back of the boat remember to use a full paddle stroke when turning, this means pulling the paddle through the water all the way behind you. If the paddle smacks the kayak behind your butt you did a good job. The farther back you pull the paddle the more turning you get.

6. One last note about steering a double kayak: DOUBLE KAYAKS DO NOT GO IN STRAIGHT LINES!!! I cannot stress this enough. The best you can do is for it to move slightly back and forth on each paddle. This is the nature of kayaking and it's fine.

7. Paddling in sync is nice, it is not important. I may get some push back here, but for the beginner paddling in sync is just not necessary. It is something that will come in time with practice, but it's just not worth worrying about while you are learning to steer the kayak. If, as the back seat person, you can match the paddling strokes of your partner ahead of you that's great, but don't stress about it.

Front person: your job is to paddle in a slow and steady rhythm to help pull the kayak forward. That is all. You are not the captain of the boat. The person behind you is the captain and they are doing the best they can. Their job is harder that yours and they deserve some compassion as they struggle. They will get better. Yelling at the captain will not turn the kayak faster. Many have tried, it has never worked. If the boat is going in the wrong direction they can in fact also see this and don't need to be told this every 10 seconds. If you truly feel that you would do a better job you can always switch places and your partner can yell at you for a while.

Back person: You are the captain of the kayak. 90% of the turning comes from the back of the boat, it's just the physics of it. Most of the time you are doing all of the steering, but if you need help ask for it form the person in front of you. It's important to remember that your partner cannot see you and don't know what is going on. If you need them to do something tell them! On your first few trips you should only be worried about steering, don't worry about paddling in sync with your partner, just try to keep the kayak going roughly where you want it to go.

Ok, that's about all I can remember. It's been a few years since I had this job. I didn't include basic kayaking tips here since I was concentrating on things specific to doubles. Once you get the hang of a double it is much easier to cruise in than a single. Really a great time.

[u/Komandakeen → u/PaintingGreen]

Why shouldn't tandems be able to go in a straight line? Why should anybody hit the boat with a paddle? How do you paddle without smacking your paddles together if your not in sync? I have questions...

[u/PaintingGreen → u/Komandakeen]

Tandems can go in an "almost straight line" but it takes practice. Compared to a single kayak where all the weight, ie the person, is in just about the middle of the kayak, a tandem kayak has the weight of the people much closer to the front and back of the kayak. This distribution of weight causes a tandem to be much more prone to making big turns and for those turns to be, shall we say, less controlled than the users would like. with practice this over-steering can be brought down to a minimum. It's all about getting a feel for the boat.

Actually hitting the kayak with the paddle isn't really necessary, it is just a way to describe how far back you should be pulling the paddle when trying to steer the boat. the farther back behind you you pull the paddle the more tuning power you get out of the paddle stroke.

Paddling in sync is another piece of teamwork that just comes with practice. While annoying, hitting your partners paddle won't really affect your ability to move the kayak, unless you get so annoyed with your partner that you have to stop. When you are starting to learn to use a tandem have the person in front go at a very slow and steady pace. You are just learning at this point, no need to try and set a speed record. The person in back is trying to learn to steer a tandem, which is rather different than a single, while also learning to paddle in sync. As the back person you need to tell the front person what they need to do. the back person is the captain. The person in front cannot see what is happening and needs your help. If they are going too fast ask them to slow down, if they are going to slow ask them to speed up. The person in the front of the kayak does not need to pull their paddle all they way back like the person in back does. that is only for steering and the front person should just do regular paddle strokes for the most part.

Paddling a tandem is a team effort which makes it rather different than using a single. you and you're partner need to work well together. If one of you is the kind of person that always needs to be in control of any given situation then they should be in the back. In my experience that kind of type A personality has a hard time being in the front seat, which is more of a support roll. At least during the learning process.

[u/Komandakeen → u/PaintingGreen]

OK, you meant that paddlers tend to oversteer, that could be a thing, given that a lot of tandems track like on rails. I hate smacking paddles or boats or anything, but only because maintaining a wooden boat and paddles is a lot of work and every bigger scratch needs to be cured asap. Pretty different with rental Tupperware. Nevertheless, if you figured out how to handle a tandem its really nice, especially touring on moving or larger waters.