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THE FOLDING KAYAK AS DREADNOUGHT
November,24th,2023
Folding kayaks have a long military history that, by necessity, is shrouded in secrecy. Enough information has leaked out, however, to testify that these tiny vessels are capable of taking punishment and providing a stable platform for transporting soldiers and ordnance over vast distances through rough sea conditions.
Although they may have been deployed by German forces earlier, folding kayaks first surfaced publicly as a British weapon of war in
1940. The British Navy’s elite special-operations unit started life in July 1940 as the Folbot Section. Its assignment: To employ folding kayaks for raiding and reconnaissance. The original name was quickly changed to the Special Boat Section (SBS) because it gave away too much about what the unit might be up to. The founder of the section was Roger Courtney, one of those many folding-kayak wanderers from the 1930s who had once paddled 3,400 miles down the Nile.
Throughout World War II, SBS units and similar folding-kayak warriors from other British services menaced enemy shipping and shore installations, and they scouted beach defenses for amphibious landings. The most famous SBS raid was Operation Frankton in 1942. Five doublekayak teams set out with magnetic mines to destroy vital enemy cargo aboard ships in Bordeaux, 62 miles up the Gironde Estuary. Folding kayaks provided the only means to crack the port’s defenses unseen and to attack the shipping with pinpoint accuracy. The following year, the SBS’s Australian counterparts used three folding kayaks to sink a half dozen enemy ships in Singapore; the Japanese defenders never suspected the raiders had come from the sea. As in Bordeaux, the folding kayaks had allowed their crews to approach targets undetected, so they could place their mines
SBS crew, training exercise, 1992. (Walther)
Folding kayaks remain a military “asset” for several dozen nations. For example, several Scandinavian countries continue to patrol long stretches of sensitive coastlines with folding kayaks. The boats can cover long distances and, unlike motor patrol boats, are hard to spot. This keeps would-be intruders guessing about where a patrol may be at any moment and whether they are being observed. Similar patrols are deployed by both Iraq and Iran in the vast Tigris-Euphrates Delta, all the better to infiltrate and interdict each other. There is good reason to believe that, during Operation Desert Storm, U.S. and British forces used foldables to run long-range reconnaissance missions on these same rivers as far north as Baghdad.
Earlier, Britain used folding kayaks extensively in retaking the Falkland Islands from an Argentine occupying force. Foldables first transported reconnaissance teams to study defenses. Then, as the British fleet and troop carriers lay offshore, teams went in again to cut communications and clean out mines and shore installations. The military continues to buy many Klepper and Nautiraid kayaks for its training and operations. The boats are often treated roughly, loaded beyond their intended capacities, manhandled from submarines and small vessels, dropped fully loaded from helicopters, and later winched back into the air with their crews and all their gear. Special-operation forces drag their boats over rocks, use them for prolonged periods in freezing and tropical conditions, and generally put more wear on them in one year than civilians would in twenty. Because these folding kayaks survive the torture, military procurement officers keep coming back for more
-Ralph Díaz :《 COMPLETE FoldingKayaker》P20