DIGITHE DIVIDE
Design Principles
TAL
WHITEWATER KAYAK DESIGN HAS EVOLVED FROM THE DAYS OF PENCIL SKETCHES, SURFORMS AND GARAGE WORKSHOPS INTO A WORLD OF DIGITAL DRAWINGS, PARAMETRIC DESIGN ENVIRONMENTS AND INTERCONNECTED MANUFACTURING INTERFACES. MOST OF TODAY’S FABRICATORS USE COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN (CAD) TOOLS IN CONCEIVING THE BOATS YOU FIND ON THE FREESTYLE COMPETITION CIRCUIT. RAPID SAT DOWN WITH TWO OF TODAY’S TOP BOAT DESIGNERS TO FIND OUT WHAT COMPUTERIZATION MEANS FOR YOUR RIDE. BY MICHAEL MECHAN
Mark “Snowy” Robertson is Dagger’s lead designer. After developing his skills crafting boats by hand, he trained in CAD to enhance those skills. Snowy shares his insight into Dagger’s philosophy on CAD technique.
RAPID: CAD seems to have significantly accelerated the production timeline, meaning new boats get to the market quicker.
SNOWY: As a designer and paddler I battle that—getting a boat out there and paddling it can’t be replicated. It would be nice to say that the process takes as long as is needed but at some point, there needs to be an end product.
It’s not the exclusive be all and end all, but CAD has become one of the fundamentals of what we do. It’s a very important tool for us to integrate with outside resources and connect our manufacturing chains. We do work with launch dates and production timeframes in mind and CAD allows us to deliver a better product at a better price.
RAPID: In the design and concept phase, time on the water is being replaced by screen time. How has this change affected the boats available today?
SNOWY: One thing CAD allows us to do is share screens with our pros in the pre-prototype stages for feedback. Throughout the process we keep coming back to the key attributes outlined in our product briefs. This ensures we’re always working toward our original goals, which come from the voice of the customer.
You can still evolve a freestyle boat by hand but things like getting symmetry right and components to fit properly are simplified using this process. Advances in software also allow me and the engineers I work alongside to input parameters to test safety considerations—like, say, if a boat will crumple in a certain manner—so we don’t have to find out the hard way.
We can also carry data from existing designs forward to build on information and design new boats based on proven concepts.
RAPID: It’s romantic to think of designers and builders working away in a shop with hand tools, going through countless prototypes, months of on-the-water testing and coming up with the perfect boat. Does CAD represent a decline in the artisan nature of boat design and building?
SNOWY: It’s fairly easy to create a block shape using a computer, but some of the design detail behind the style and many of the finer features, like the rails, comes from work done by hand. If I don’t like the look of something when it comes off the [computer numerical control] machine (the automated device that cuts a life-sized version of the boat, usually out of foam), I’ll go in and make changes by hand.
I started out 10 years ago using hand shaping and then moved into CAD. It’s being able to understand why you’re working with the shapes you started with that’s most important.
www.rapidmag.com 39
IMAGES COURTESY WAVE SPORT KAYAKS (
WWW.WAVESPORT.COM)
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