ONAK Foldable Canoe and we want one

True adventure is a step in the unknown. True adventure is when you, your partner, and the world you live in get a little closer. True adventure is this little moment guided by the elements we nowadays find hard to understand. Close to home, in the city, or far away in the wild outdoors.

We at Onak love taking a leap in the unknown. We strongly believe that our brand can guide all of us in our common journey to find these little moments we so cherish.

With the ONAK canoe we have taken the first leap in our journey by designing a portable canoe that doesn’t compromise on quality and at the same time remains affordable for modern adventurers. By reducing a design to its simplest, most elegant and ergonomic form possible we got to a product more beautiful and easy to use and manufacture.

Before, the lightest and best performing canoes were only something for the elite, the ‘crazy’ ones. They inhibited the use of exotic sounding and complex materials to bring the best performance possible. But who are the real crazy ones? Those that didn’t look for a more simple, more elegant solution? Or those who envisioned this doesn’t cut the fold and found true performance in simple, far from exotic materials?

When our designer Otto Van De Steene started to get to the folding of canoes with the support and technical expertise of Thomas Weyn, he opened a book of problems and possibilities. In place of getting held off by these problems Thomas & Otto decided upon innovating on every single little aspect to realize their dream of paddling their perfect modern canoe.

Our designs, principles and ideas have everything in themselves to overturn the world of canoeing, but that is not where we envision our mission to end. We plan to adventure into revolutionising and democratising a much wider array of markets with radically new approaches.

This is because, even if we put the utmost care in developing great products, it is never the products themselves which define our goal. Our true mission will always remain bound to the spirit of adventure guided by the elements which we have been lucky to find in our lives, and which we desire to share with the world. After all, isn’t the greatest adventure of all the one that you make possible for someone else?

Paddling with the flow of a stream is an amazing feeling. However, you usually end your journey in a different location. ONAK solves this issue by being foldable: stash it in the trunk of your car, carry it around with public transport, allowing for less planning than ever. A real adventure.

Have quality time together

Canoeing with ONAK is most fun when done together. You can steer the canoe from the back while your partner enjoys a carefree experience. Can you think of a better way to spend your free time?

Innovative material

Instead of designing around the limits of existing materials, we developed our own: it is durable and flexible enough to be folded and unfolded multiple thousands of times. Our patent pending Honeycomb – Curv™ Polypropylene material became the backbone of our innovation. Aside from being extremely tough and fully recyclable, it allowed us to design a stiff canoe almost entirely in one piece, with very few other parts required. Honeycomb air cells give it so much additional buoyancy that it even stays afloat when entirely flooded with water.

Sleek design

By making hundreds of paper models and fifteen real prototypes, we refined the design of our patent pending hull. This was a huge challenge due to the limitations of origami. We opted for a narrow and fast canoe design that keeps its momentum very well, while still being delightfully easy and stable to maneuver for beginners.

Stable and fast

Designing a canoe has always been an act of balance between speed and stability. We chose for a shape that is very fast and top performing, whilst still stable enough for beginning users. To evade sudden accidents the hull shape gets makes that you’d get a push back when you’re getting close to tipping over the canoe.

Specifications

canoe:
465 cm (183”) x 85 cm (33.5”).
200 kg (441 lbs) to 250 kg (551 lbs) capacity.

Case on wheels:

40 cm (16″) x 120 cm (48″) x 25 cm (10″).
17 kg (37 lbs) weight.