Dumbi

The Dumbi is an easy-to-paddle surf kayak with great performance characteristics. It is not aimed at winning surfing competitions, but rather to bring the joy of surfing waves to aspiring surf kayakers.

The hull of the Dumbi is designed for fast planing and easy carving. You can surf waves without attaching fins to it, which makes it very forgiving and easy to side surf and spin on waves. With the fins attached, you can carve harder and have a generally more aggressive ride. The choice is yours!

One of the most daunting challenges for inexperienced paddlers is paddling through waves to the backline. For this reason, the bow of the Dumbi is designed to punch through waves with ease. The high volume of the stern adds stability when punching through waves, and generally result in a more stable ride.

The sculpted seat and lower-than-bum footwell make the Dumbi comfortable to paddle, while also keeping the paddler securely in the boat when things get a bit rough. Thigh straps are also added to secure you into the boat even better, and if you’re a kayaker with a decent roll, you don’t even need to swim if you capsize.

Unique to the Dumbi are the Sidewall Drainage Holes, which drain water from the deck in an instant when you punch through waves. This ensures a drier ride and better performance.

It is accommodating and forgiving to novices, but also a blast of fun for experienced paddlers. With the Dumbi, we hope to see more paddlers having more fun in the surf than ever before.

Length: 270 cm / 8’10”
Width: 70 cm / 27.5″
Height: 43 cm / 17″
Weight: 24 kg / 53 lb
Ideal paddler weight: 50-100 kg / 110-220 lb
Max. carrying capacity: 110 kg / 240 lb

CHILDREN

Older children and teens will enjoy surfing waves on the Dumbi but it will be too big and heavy for smaller children. For little ones, we recommend our children’s kayak, the Kwando, which can easily handle small waves.

DOG FRIENDLY

Yes, small-sized dogs – like water-crazy Jack Russells – can easily sit between your legs.

FLATWATER

The Dumbi can definitely be taken on dams and rivers where it is fun to paddle. It just won’t be as fast as one of our sit-on-top recreational kayaks.

TOURING

Nah.

FISHING

Nah.

OCEAN

The Dumbi will happily paddle behind the backline, taking the swell in its stride.

OCEAN SURF

The Dumbi is a surf kayak with real performance characteristics. It can punch through waves, surf, carve, spin and edge.

WHITEWATER

Designed to surf ocean waves, the Dumbi is a good sport on rivers where it can surf rapids too.

SUP

Nah.

Designing this surfkayak has been on my to-do list for many years and I’m super stoked about the fact that it finally became a reality.

Just about every paddler and wannabe paddler wants to surf on ocean waves, but the reality is that all surfkayaks and waveskis require pretty good skills to handle. Not only this, but not being able to roll puts a definite damper on the kayak surfing aspirations of many paddlers. On the other side of the kayak spectrum, the vast majority of sit-on-top kayaks (no rolling required) are not at all fun to surf.

What I wanted to create is a sit-on-top surfkayak that is very easy to paddle and surf, but that has real performance characteristics so that experienced paddlers can have a blast too. To be more precise, I wanted a sit-on-top that is so good at surfing that I’m happy to have it as my only personal surfkayak, but that is also so easy to paddle that I can put complete beginners on it without worrying about their safety. It took a few prototypes to find the perfect balance.

I combined some design features that are normally not found together in one boat. I gave the hull a nice big planing surface for quick lift-off. The low stern rocker and square stern profile make the planing fast and stable. I gave it raised rails with soft bevels underneath that make it carve hard when you put it on edge, but that is super forgiving when going sideways on a wave. I gave it a lot of bow rocker for those badly-timed take-offs when catching waves. The hull surfs great without fins installed, but I also added fin boxes for those who want to add fins for more aggressive carving.

What I did with the deck, however, is what really makes the boat so amazing. The seating position is both super comfortable and secure, holding you in place when punching through waves and edging the boat to carve. The thigh straps are positioned for maximum effectiveness, and rolling the boat is quite easy if you have a decent roll. I gave the stern huge volume, which makes the boat very stable in many different situations: punching through waves, surfing sideways, getting dumped by a wave from behind, etc.

Another unique feature is the wave-piercing bow. It is pointy and buoyant and shaped to shed water very quickly. This makes the boat great for punching through waves when paddling for the back line. Like all the other sit-on-tops in the Vagabond lineup, I also added some big cutaways on the deck for smooth paddle strokes.

I didn’t want to put scupper holes through the hull of the boat to drain water from the cockpit area, as this would negatively affect the surfing performance of the hull. It is important to drain the water somehow, otherwise you’ll be paddling in a bathtub as soon as you go through the first wave. So, I did something different, which works really really well: big drainage holes through the sidewalls. It drains the water in no time, and has no negative effect on the performance of the boat at all.

For safety reasons, I gave the boat a bunch of handles, spaced in the most-likely positions where a swimmer may grab them to hold onto the boat. These same handles make it easier to get back on top too.

Having spent quite a bit of time on the ocean with this boat myself, and also seeing the smiles of novice paddlers who tried surfing for the first time, I’m confident that the Dumbi will enable more paddlers to have more fun in the surf than ever before.

Celliers Kruger, designer of Vagabond Kayaks

A video clip from Nicola Simpson of Ian Simpson kayaksurfing the Dumbi surfkayak at Cannon Rocks in the Eastern Cape, South Africa – on a very windy day.