Watercraft

Touring kayaks are typically made of plastic, composites or sometimes wood, but unlike canoes, almost never aluminum. That didn't faze Brennen Kunka, however, who recently built his own all-aluminum kayak from the ground up – and it's awesome!

What do you get when cross an ebike with a hydrofoil? That would be the Manta5, which we first heard about back in 2017. The 2nd-gen model has now been announced, and it features a new throttle-only mode, along with a much quicker learning curve.

Hydrofoil cycling is among the more intriguing new water sports out there, but it's also rather intimidating. JetCycle skips the high saddled frame and drops its pedaled foil down to kayak level, offering high-flying glide with less intimidation.

Building bridges over waterways isn't a simple endeavor, which is why many cities instead look to ferries. With that fact in mind, a new autonomous electric passenger ferry is being trialled in Norway, and it's said to be the first of its kind.

Around the time we looked at the WaveFlyer "world's first electric hydrofoil jet ski," Neocean was developing an e-hydrofoil PWC of its own. The Overboat starts its ride as a mini-catamaran before rising over the water to hit speeds up to 20 knots.

It was just last month that we heard about Envo's Flex Snowbike, which lets users pedal across the powder. Well, the Canadian company hasn't forgotten about summer sports, as it's also working on an electric-assist catamaran.

Whatever's in the water down in Florida, we want some. As ridiculously awesome as it is awesomely ridiculous, the Shadow Six Typhoon places a UTV body on top of a pair of high-performance jet skis, creating the world's first "aquatic utility vehicle."

Perhaps you like riding your ebike but you also like paddleboarding, and you don't like the idea of having to choose between the two. Well, with the Red Shark Bike you don't need to, as it (sort of) combines both activities in one watercraft.

There are now several different packable boats that can be carried in the back of a car, and assembled onsite. And while most of them fold like origami, the Nanoyacht is a bit different, in that it's made up of multiple nesting boxes.

Although pedal-powered boats do exist, most use either a propeller or flapping fins. Ben Kilner's one-off Jamima Paddleduck takes a different approach, with two rear paddles mounted on a bike frame – and the setup has some definite selling points.

It would cost a lot of money to send a boatload of marine scientists across the Atlantic Ocean, all of them conducting research along the way. That's where the Oceanus will come in, as plans call for it to do the job without any crew aboard.

Ever since Oru introduced its first origami-style folding kayak back in 2012, other brands have come out with boats that were claimed to be lighter and more compact. Oru has now addressed that competition, with its sub-$700 18-lb (8 kg) Lake kayak.