NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — A few weeks ago, as Hurricane Florence raged in the Atlantic and small-craft warnings were issued locally, Zac Warren and Christopher Rodgers set off from a dock in Salem to take on 4- to 5-foot waves in lightweight, high-performance sea kayaks.

In 15-knot winds, the 28-year-olds paddled past Pickering Wharf and Derby Light, through Salem Harbor and out to Salem Sound. Once off the coast, they took turns flipping the boats and performing self-rescues, eventually beaching on Winter Island only to launch back into the crashing waves.

Many would have been frightened in those conditions, but not Warren and Rodgers. The experienced kayakers paddled seaworthy Little Wings, crafts designed by Zac Warren’s father, Ted, 61, co-owner of Warren Light Craft in Salem. The two said they don’t condone going out in those conditions, but have confidence in their abilities and Ted Warren’s design.

“I really didn’t feel like I was in any danger,” said Rodgers, a Beverly resident. “I felt like I was in a state of amusement.”

Ted Warren had no qualms about Zac, his business partner, and Rodgers, Warren Light Craft’s only full-time employee, going out in the foul weather that day, as he stayed behind at Warren Light Craft in a waterfront industrial building behind The Grapevine restaurant in Salem.

“I wasn’t at all concerned. I knew they would find out what I designed into the boat,” said Ted Warren, a Salem resident. “And I was very interested in hearing about their experiences. The problem is that they got addicted to big waves.”

Ted Warren had been designing and building ultra-light, trimaran sailboats for 25 years before he and his son started Warren Light Craft in 2005, and he integrated his experience, along with materials and engineering, into the Little Wing, a lightweight, carbon-fiber kayak that recently received a gold recognition from the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).

Each year, IDSA, in conjunction with “BusinessWeek” magazine, sponsors an international design competition, the Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA). A jury of leaders in the design world picked just 27 gold winners out of a pool of 1,533 entries, all judged on the basis of design excellence, highlighting aesthetics, engineering and usability. The IDEA report was published in the July 10 issue of “BusinessWeek.”



Family business

Father and son, both MIT graduates with engineering degrees, had never worked together before starting their company almost two years ago, but have spent time in close quarters. The Warren family — including sister, Alisha, and mother, Barbara, director of Salem Sound Coastwatch — would often sail to Martha’s Vineyard for vacations and Ted and Zac Warren raced Ted’s custom sailboats, going undefeated one season.

“Zac was my crew,” said Ted Warren, who has been sailing for more than 50 years.

Zac Warren said he left an office job doing applications on programming software to work with his father.

“We’ve been talking about it for a long time. He’s been trying to get me to quit my job and come work for him,” Zac Warren said. “I was the right age. I always wanted to do something exciting and take a risk, and I always wanted to start my own company.”

According to Ted Warren, the timing couldn’t have been better. “Zac’s at the right age to go into the business and I’m an empty nester,” he said.

Zac Warren, who recently married and moved to Medford, said boatbuilding was a hobby for his father, who sacrificed his dream of doing it full-time to put his two children through college.

Now that the Warrens are a team, they are able to concentrate on high quality craftsmanship in a city historically known for fine boatbuilding.

“We’re maintaining a tradition in Salem of boatbuilding, a tradition continued from the 18th century,” Ted Warren said. “The original Friendship was built across the river at a boat yard,” he said, motioning out of a small showroom to where Shetland Properties now stands,

“Back then, they used the best quality materials that they could, to be as fast as they could and make the ships as seaworthy as they could,” he said. “That’s what we’re about here. Same goals, different market.”



Winging it

Little Wing kayaks come in two lengths, 16 and 18 feet, and weigh just 32 and 36 pounds, respectively, half the weight of traditional fiberglass kayaks. Two layers of carbon fiber, said to be the best material for maximizing strength while minimizing weight, sandwich a marine foam core which helps to withstand impact and provides buoyancy.

Each boat is hand-made to order and can be customized. The base price of the Little Wing 16 is $4,395 while the Little Wing 18 is $4,985. Standard colors are blue, red and yellow while custom paint jobs cost more.

The price hasn’t deterred customers: The company shipped its first boat in September 2005, and is now booked through December with orders, Zac Warren said.

The patent-pending, hourglass shape of the Little Wing is functional in that the flares or wings on either side of the boat, in front and back, increase stability in rough conditions or while edging or leaning. The wings, which jut out just above a narrow water line, give expedition paddlers twice as much storage space as traditional kayaks. And the wide, rear wings provide a secure platform on which to perform a re-entry.

According to Ted Warren, good engineering requires that the boat be narrow by the paddle. The closer you can put the paddle to your body the easier it is to stroke, he said. Hence the shape of the kayak: wide, stable wings in bow and stern and a narrow cockpit so paddlers don’t have to reach out over the boat. The boat’s stern has a reverse transom, similar to traditional sailboat, which prevents pitching and makes the boat behave better, said Zac Warren.

Growing in Salem

The Warrens recently moved their molding, fairing, assembly and painting operations across an alley to a 3,000-foot space. Previously they did all the work in a 1,000-foot open room, which now serves as a showroom where they perform final assembly.

They hired Rodgers as director of manufacturing this year and Ted Warren said he’d like to have a total staff of eight by the spring, including he and Zac on marketing, sales and engineering.

For now, the three build Little Wings in pairs, taking two to three weeks to complete two. According to Ted Warren, they employ a mix of traditional, wooden boatbuilding craftsmanship and bring it into the modern age with materials and engineering, using the latest auto body technology to paint and finish the kayaks with a light, clear coat.

By 2008, he hopes to double or triple manufacturing space and would like to find a place in Salem to build out, he said.

“We’re right where we should be for being almost two years old,” Ted Warren said.

The staff stresses that this “kayak for life,” as they call it, can be enjoyed by kayakers of all skill levels.

“Part of the design is that a beginner can paddle it. ...” Zac Warren said, “while an expert never gets tired of it,” said Rodgers, finishing his friend’s sentence.

Before long, Ted Warren summed things up.

“We just get a lot of ‘wow’ out of it and it’s a lot of fun,” he said.



Larry Claflin Jr. writes for The Eagle-Tribune in North Andover, Mass.