Everything started last year when David, the WaveSport designer, has designed the first prototype of a new creek boat. The idea was to start from the Habitat design and improve it. The first boat, called phase 1, was looking like this:
This boat has been sent in October to some kayakers of the WaveSport team in order to test it. I've been involved in this testing so I managed to try the boat: I noticed that it had a great high nose but some problems in volume displacement. I talked for hours with David to find the way to keep the good features and to solve the problems. David has been really patient and very sensitive to all advices from all testers. He worked with us directly on the 3D program used for design.
After David had collected all the advices, he designed a phase 2.
Again, around March all the testers tried the boat again to improve the result. This boat was much better than the first one, better than the Habitat but still we tried to improve it more. For example, I suggested to rise the nose up a little bit more and to modify the volume displacement on the hull, while Brian Kirck suggested to add a continuous rocker. Moreover, all the styling features have been studied a lot to make this new boat looking nice and the name has finally been decided: RECON.
Finally the design of the final prototype was ready in July.
The differences with the Habitat hull are identified well in this image where the two boats are shown one inside the other. It is easy to see the higher nose, the difference on the volume displacement and the continuous rocker.
I really believe this boat is going in the direction of making kayaker's life much easier. More stability, easy driving and a very good boof ability even when you miss the right stroke.
I think David is explaining all the new features very well in this interview:
Here you can see the Recon in action:
