Thursday, April 26, 2012

How Many Kayaks Are There?

I lifted this photo off facebook.  It shows a bunch of kayaks and canoes all rafted up together to set a Guiness Book world record.  The photo came with the following info:
"The largest raft of canoes and kayaks consisted of 1,902 boats and was achieved at the event "One Square Mile of Hope". The event was sponsored by the Central Adirondack Paddlers Society, and took place on Fourth Lake in Inlet, New York, USA!"
The photo got me to thinking, how many kayaks are there in the world right now?  Probably lots and lots, maybe even millions, thanks to the miracle of injecting plastic into a mold.  This is not intended to be a slam on plastic kayaks by the way.  Even home built skin on frame kayaks in the world right now must come close to the number of skin kayaks that existed at the peak of population in the Arctic. 
Aleut population at its maximum was estimated to be about 20,000.  Perhaps a third of that population was adult males each of whom supposedly had a kayak. So at its peak, there were perhaps 7000 kayaks in the Aleutians. 

1 comment:

Australia Kayaks said...

Nice! photo. It is very difficult to say about the exact numbers of kayaks.