Local Products: Bellyak Changes the Way Paddlers Connect with the Water
By Trevor Clark
With its network of rivers, swaths of national parks, and outdoors-oriented culture, Western North Carolina provides a harbor for innovation and adventure in nature sports. Weaverville-based Bellyak changes the way watersports enthusiasts interact with their environment, bringing paddlers closer to the water they ride.
Bellyak founder Adam Masters grew up in a family of avid kayakers and paddle sports innovators. His father started Perception Kayaks in the early 1970s and his uncle designed kayaks. Adam spent his childhood summers on the rivers of South Carolina, cultivating a passion for watersports and developing his own paddling techniques. As Adam grew, so did his passion for kayaking. He became a whitewater instructor, simultaneously teaching the fundamentals of the sport and pushing his own boundaries.
“I used to hand paddle—kayak without a paddle—and thought it was really fun,” he says. “Then one day, I laid on top of my boat and this light bulb went off. It was super fun.” He found this style of rowing, known as prone paddling, more “friendly” to beginners than traditional kayaking.
“When I started taking my friends out, I thought, Man, I’m taking my buddies who have no experience out on the water, and they’re having a ton of fun, because they could self-rescue—if you flip the boat, you can hop right back on, or you can roll it,” says Adam. “The learning curve was so fast to get people in the water; people who had never kayaked were totally into it. People who already kayaked found it an exciting way to change the perspective of a familiar run on a river.”
In 2004, Adam chopped up a weathered kayak to craft the first incarnation of the Bellyak. Held together by canvas, plastic, and duct tape, the boat gave Adam one of the most memorable, entertaining river runs of his life. The boat would go through various incarnations over the next eight years before Adam started Bellyak, Inc. in 2012.
Today, Bellyak distributes its products around the globe. Crafted in Fletcher, the boats can be found anywhere from the Nantahala Outdoor Center to rural reaches of New Zealand. Though the company operates on a large scale, Adam aspires to cultivate a community culture centered on the Bellyak in the Southeast.
“What we’re trying to do now is build the local culture here and build a following at home by teaching a lot of people,” Adam says. To achieve this goal, Bellyak offers both introduction and progression clinics in the Asheville area on alternating weekends. This summer, the company will offer demos that run on the French Broad River from the Wedge Brewing Company to the Bywater bar. Adam hopes that riders of the Bellyak will experience the same sheer joy and relationship with the water that made him fall in love with prone paddling.
“I love it because it simplifies the interface between you and the water,” says Adam. “There’s just nothing like it. I still get an ear-to-ear grin every time.”
Bellyak boats can be found at select outdoors centers and retailers in the region. For more information, visit bellyak.com. Trevor Clark is a writer living in Asheville.
