P A D D L E R P R O F I L E
Robert Peerson blending art and science into Wave Sport’s next creeker. PHOTOS: KAREN KOWALSKI
Robert Peerson DESIGNING KAYAKS IN PURSUIT OF BEAUTY
MOST PEOPLE TRY not to think about work while they’re paddling, but Robert Peerson can’t get it out of his head. As the head kayak designer for Wave Sport, Peerson’s job is to obsess about how minute tweakings of chine angle and volume distribution can be the difference between a dog of a design and kayaking’s next great innovation. Peerson’s story is straight out of freeboat-
ing fantasyland. After graduating from indus- trial design at Alabama’s Auburn University in 1999, Peerson dropped in on Wave Sport for an interview on his way to Gauley Fest. A few weeks later he was sanding the plugs of Eric Jackson’s EZ models. When Jackson left Wave Sport in 2003,
the 27-year-old Peerson stepped up and grabbed the calipers. “I had never designed a boat before, so
I was working with a clean slate. I think that mentality drove new ideas into the ZG,” says Peerson. The ZG surely followed traditional Wave Sport lines, but had enough new inno- vations like more forgiving ends and a quick- er release in the center of the boat to speak well of the young designer. Rapid agreed, describing the ZG in a 2005 playboat review as being the only boat that every tester could
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jump into and instantly rip in. He’s had as much or more success with the
well-regarded river running Diesel and new freestyling Project models (see page 44). Peerson is now forging a creeker to add to Wave Sport’s catalogue of boats, replacing
Peerson’s unhurried
southern drawl hints at a man who approaches his work with patience
Jackson’s almost-forgotten Mutant. The order papers to build a new boat reach
Peerson in his tidy shop after Wave Sport’s marketing department seizes on a void in the market. Peerson takes their directive, sits down in front of a 3-D computer design pro- gram and puts as many wild ideas into the first design as he can. “You see what works, and then go in that direction,” says Peerson. After designing a mould, he makes a plas-
tic prototype, loads it on his van and goes to “work.”
“I try and paddle as much as I can,” he
says. “That’s where the ideas come from.” Working on the creek boat, he’s been at
North Carolina’s Green River—30 minutes from his office—every day for weeks at a time with each prototype. He travels with Wave Sport team paddlers like Jimmy Blakeney and Tanya Shuman and a blow torch, foam and glue so he can modify the volume of the hull according to the pro’s comments. “My biggest challenge is translating feed-
back into something I can work with on the computer,” says Peerson. “Then I start on the next prototype and keep going until ev- eryone is sitting in the eddy saying, ‘That’s the one.’” Sometimes that means chipping away at
as many as six or seven prototypes, but Peer- son’s unhurried southern drawl hints at a man who approaches his work with patience. “I’m a perfectionist in my work,” admits
Peerson. “You can’t rush it, because each design aspect is part of a larger whole. You can’t just look at design as a bunch of angles and numbers you punch into a computer. It’s a science, but also an art. Everything has to work together to create something beautiful.” —Ryan Stuart
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