We are DesignKayaks

Many of the best ideas come from a problem. Our problem was pretty basic: We struggled to find a cool looking quality kayak at a reasonable price. This was the beginning of DesignKayaks and formed our mission

Meet the people

DesignKayaks is founded by the Danish couple Søren & Hanne Groth Telling in 2018. We come with very different backgrounds, but with a shared passion for kayaking. Søren has spend most of his life outdoors and has made a living out of outdoor activities with kayaking being his favorite activity. Hannes professional life has been devoted to market research and concept development, but always found active outdoors to be the best way to get away from the stress of modern life.

In 2021 Christian Johnsen joined us at DesignKayaks. He comes from 25 years of working with user experience design and business development, but much more important – he is a passionate and skilled paddler.

Our factory in South Africa is looked after by Stiian Luyt. Stiian is our jack-of-all-trades and keeps everything running smoothly both in moulding, assembly and QC. He has an eye on all the small parts that go into our production and is also our daily online meeting liasion between Denmark and South Africa.

DesignKayaks headquarter is based in Denmark. All kayaks are manufactured in South Africa and distributed worldwide to our partneres who takes care of the locale sale.

Hanne Groth Telling

The Captain

Søren Groth Telling

The Vessel Master

Christian johnsen

The Brand Navigator

STIAAN LUYT

The Boatsman

Join Our Network of Distributors

DesignKayaks is a Danish sea kayak brand: Stunning colors, exceptional performance. Unmatched value for money for you and your customers. Our model range consists of three models designed to meet different demands. They apply to everyone from new paddlers, exercise and touring paddlers all the way to instructors, technique and surf aficionados.

Our factory

Passion seeps through every step of the process when we make our sea kayaks. Our factory is located in the city of George in South Africa and with our modern roto moulding techniques we produce our high quality 3-layer PE sea kayaks in a well engineered and computer controlled environment.