The original kayaks were sea kayaks, of course, evolved over centuries by the Inuit using materials available on the shores of the Arctic Tundra. Driftwood for frames and paddles, seal skin for the covering, sinew for lashings. The designs, whilst obviously heavily influenced by the available building materials, were nonetheless supremely suited to the conditions. Darwinism in action - if your boat wasn't up to it, you died ! The modern fibreglass or plastic sea kayak owes a great deal to the Inuit including its supremely elegant but functional shape. Especially, for the 'British' style of sea kayak, to designs collected in Greenland. In particular, almost all modern designs hark back to a skin boat made in Igdlorssuit for Ken Taylor, who brought it back to Scotland. This most directly evolved into the Anas Acuta, an elegant but fairly narrow boat based on a plywood adaptation of Ken Taylor's boat. The club has an early Anas, recently modernised with bulkheads and hatches. It is a supremely seaworthy boat, and great fun in the rocks and surf, but doesn't have the volume for multiday camping trips.

From the Anas evolved other designs such as the Nordkapp, for long expeditions in rough seas, and definitely not a boat for beginners. But from a desire to introduce new people to the sport in a teaching context, more forgiving designs evolved. Many SOC members have boats designed by Mike Nelson (an SOC member on and off) as North Shore Designs. The club has a Calypso II double sea kayak made by North Shore. As you can see, the double is particularly good for seeing wildlife, as the front paddler can take photographs whilst the paddler aft keeps control of the boat. See Sea kayaking for wildlife.

Recently, some of Mike Nelson's designs have been made by Valley Canoe Products alongside the Anas, the Nordkapp and more modern boats. Also often seen is the Romany (or its longer variant, the Explorer) made by Nigel Dennis in Anglesey. The other club sea boat is an Icefloe, designed by Derek Hutchinson, and capable of carrying enough gear for an extended camping trip. For more information on these and other boats you might try, see Some Sea Boats to Try.

All these boats are very different from the modern plastic recreational and whitewater kayaks that you will see on rivers. They are designed to go where you point them in waves and wind, and not turn readily on a sixpence, though they can be surprisingly manoeverable when you are confident enough to lean them well over and use the tops of waves as a pivot. On the other hand, boats specifically designed for surf are much shorter - the saltwater equivalent of the whitewater paddlers' playboats, but significantly different from them in detail, inspired also by aspects of design derived from surf boards.

The pages in this section are intended to give you an idea of why we go sea kayaking, where we go sea kayaking, and what equipment is needed for day trips, weekend camping trips, and for longer expeditions. Most of the club's surfing is an incidental activity on sea trips, but we do also have days at the seaside specifically to play in the surf - mostly in plastic whitewater boats as we don't have consistently good enough surf locally for people to own a purpose-built boat.

For some examples of the trips we do quite often, see Some of SOC's Favourite Sea Trips. You'll also find lots of information in the Previous Sea Trips section, and many of those articles link to "Additional Notes" pages which give a lot of detail of the planning that goes into the trips. For days at the seaside, see our Surfing page.