MENU: Team 4X Member Portal | Member Account | Help | 4X Gear Shop | Refer a Friend
When I lived in Arizona I had an inflatable canoe - Sevylor Colorado I believe it was - it was OK but there was a really fine line between making it tightly inflated enough to feel efficient and taut on the water, or bursting the expensive and difficult to obtain bladders.
Nonetheless I got several good years out of that and after replacing the bladders again for the last time I gave it to a friend when I moved from AZ to WA.
Well we have more lakes and rivers here in Washington! So I ordered an Advanced Elements 2-person inflatable kayak, hopefully a little better than the Sevylor canoe.
Compared to a molded kayak I expect it probably won't track as well, this model in particular has been described by reviewers as "basically a SUP shaped like a kayak" and it appears to not have a skeg nor a keel to speak of.
Should be here next week - I'm excited and will share how it works out, hopefully in video format. Posting before it arrives 'cause it's quiet around here and we might as well stay stoked especially now that America's getting healthier (so it seems) and we can start truly dreaming about unencumbered travel again!
Win some, lose some... the yak arrived and it's nice! I think....
but the pump arrived with a broken pressure gauge and a not so great hose.. for close to $150 I think it's gotta go back. Hopefully we can get a plan B pump in time for next weekend!
Wow that thing looks pretty nice, Shovel. Really. I had considered an Oru folding Kayak for some time until I discovered SUP expedition inflatable boards... but then again, the SUP isn't for fast-moving water. I was invited to kayak next summer from Portland out to the Sea with my step-son (former) who is now 25 years old and said he wants to do it. I may do so but would need a kayak for that trip.
When I was in my 20's I picked up a Sevylor sit on top kayak/SUP sort of thing from a rummage sale. Loved it. used to paddle with it on the Verde south of Barlett lake to the confluence with Salt River. It was a decent craft.
Where do you plan on using that yak?
Where do you plan on using that yak?
I'd like to use it just about everywhere on the planet but realistically I doubt we'll get more than a state away in the near future. We took it out for its initial run yesterday at Potholes Lake and ran into a familiar sight..
After burning some gas and time we found ourselves (legally) on the other side of that gate anyway.
Potholes Lake is the result of a dam at the low end of a sand dune area and the dune formations led to some interesting lake formation. It's all in the middle of a huge agricultural area so the water has a bit more floating algae and goop than is comfortable to swim in but we were there mainly to shakedown the kayak; get used to how easily it deploys and how well it yaks.
This one is the "improved" model that uses a drop stitched base inside the kayak shell which gives it a very flat bottom, it's basically a SUP shoved in the bottom of a kayak-shaped shell. There are six chambers (!!) to inflate.. 1 is a 1-psi initial chamber to get it mostly boat shaped. 2 is a 2-psi chamber which lives alongside the 1st chamber and provides rigidity, 3 is a surfboard shoved down in the bottom that takes 6 psi and gives a sturdy platform further improving rigidity. Then there is an inflatable midbeam which I expect doesn't have much of a job to do but perhaps when loaded to capacity or underinflated it keeps the sides of the boat from flexing inward like a coke bottle. It's possible that also is more necessary on the lower priced version of this kayak which doesn't have the drop-stich surfboard thing in the bottom.
Since this has a chamber which requires 5-6psi it needs a SUP-ready air pump. Initially I had bought a manually operated pump from Red for this but it came out of the box with problems so I returned that and ordered an electric pump instead. That pump has 2 stages, one high(ish) volume pump which works up to about 0.8psi and then a high pressure pump that can get up to 20psi. There is a digital pressure read-out and limiter so it's convenient to select your target pressure and then press start, it'll stop when it reaches that target.
Works well, I kind of wish the manual one had worked correctly because this electric pump feels lazy to use but hopefully it minimizes time spent pumping and that gets me more time paddling.
Review on the boat itself - well it's definitely the most solid-feeling inflatable I've used! And the fastest inflatable, across the water. That drop stitch base keeps it from flexing and that means paddling effort goes into moving forward not just banana-flexing the boat. A bit like the difference in climbing on a very soft full suspension MTB vs. a hardtail.
Because the water was a bit gross and cold.. and we forgot to bring a bailing sponge we decided not to swim so that meant we did not get to test climb-in-from-the-water stability. My old inflatable canoe was pretty good for that, easy to get in from the side if someone else was in it or climb over the stern if it was empty. I doubt I will be climbing over the bow or stern of this pointier and more rigid yak so it remains to be seen if I can get in from the water at all. Here I should also acknowledge I weigh 20 pounds more than I did the last time I climbed into a canoe from open water... well we have a 25 mile bike ride planned for this afternoon to help solve that particular problem 🙂
Despite being very fast and rigid for an inflatable the tracking and steering are not strong points. One really needs to put deliberate effort into steering. We got the hang of it pretty quickly, doesn't seem like a show ender. I don't know how that will play out on moving water.
We made an attempt to kayak at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers in Pasco, WA but the wind was just too brutal for us, and apparently for everyone else because there were zero boats on the water. Ah well, it was pretty! And we picked mulberries.
If you were curious here's how the kayak packs in the back of a Jeep Patriot, similar in size to most small SUVs or wagons..
The park was pretty and has small museum & history center focused on the namesake of the park, Sacajawea.
Not far away is Palouse Falls, fun little hike but we unexpectedly encountered a couple who were really enjoying nature so we let them have their privacy.. well they were in a public park so maybe they didn't care but I didn't bring Olympic score cards to hold up & wasn't adequately prepared to spectate.
Nature lovers aside, we plan to return to both places hopefully on less windy days for kayaking in the rivers and maybe swimming in the pool below the fall if that's allowed!
I've been to that confluence! Too bad it was so windy. And, no closed signs!