When you want to venture on a boat alone, you bring a kayak. When you want to do it with a partner, you need a canoe. When you want to look lovingly into the eyes of the person you’re boating with and don’t really feel like paddling, the Tandem is exactly the boat you’re looking for.
Made by British engineer Joe Rutland, it’s a two-person canoe with seats designed so that the two passengers are angled facing each other. Granted, that doesn’t really make physical intimacy easier, but it does let you stare at your partner’s eyes (or something else, whichever may be more appropriate) the entire ride, which is better than staring at their back. Plus, the lack of forced physical intimacy should make it easy to ride with your buddies without making things awkward.
The Tandem can be paddled like a regular canoe (in fact, you’ll need a paddle during tricky maneuvers), although it comes with a built-in drive mechanism that lets you ferry it by pedaling, similar to many boats we’ve featured (Bionx Seascape, Waterbuggy). Two sets of pedals are onboard so both passengers can get it running on the water, with a tiller-like handle for steering. The adjustable seats, dual-crank drive unit, and rudder are all detachable without tools, so you can set up the boat on a roof rack for easy transport on land. Fully-assembled, it measures 4.8m long, with a 0.9m beam and a 60kg weight. It can hold passengers and cargo (there’s allotted space for holding picnic and camping gear) with a combined weight of 250kg. No word on max speed, although we doubt you’ll be getting a pedal-powered boat if you want serious speed.
Currently, the Tandem is raising funding on Kickstarter for a production run. Pledges to reserve one starts at £2,000.