[column]

You are correct. However, it is stated that 'KAYAK' appears only once and it seems to me that CTRL+Fing should be the first thing to do when searching for a string in a relatively small text. The next step, had the CTRL+F failed, would have been to search for "KAYAK" vertically/diagonally programmatically.

(on a sidenote, you're counting is incorrect, as it is a palindrome there really is only 4 directions for the word to appear: W-E, N-S, NW-SE, NE-SW)

[pacofvf]

for vertical, you could transpose the crossword then Ctrl+F, just being aware that the result has its columns and rows switched.