New Alpacka boat design!

[Travis Leanna]

I've been puttsing around for the last hour, and I actually think it will be ok. I've installed the seat correctly, and adjusted the backrest, and now, when sitting up straight, my legs can actually straighten out.

I think I'm good to go!

[David Chenault]

Enjoy! Have much open water yet?

Looks like a good river Peter.

[Travis Leanna]

Pretty much all our water here is open now. Everything's melted. Now, it's just finding some time to go! I still have to mess around with how to pack this thing…

Need advice on packing the packraft….. is it ok to be lashed onto the outside of the pack (in its stuff sack for modest protection)? Or should I really get it inside my pack for best protection/weight placement?

[peter vacco]

an Alpacka makes a very sweet pillow. they come of course with a stuff bag and an inflato bag, and that won't do.
you can make a smaller (and Much nicer) stuff sack on yer own. and the inflato bag, although generously huge, is heavy to do just inflation only.
an idea might be to make a dual-use stuff sack the correct length, but quite a bit wider (for inflate volume). then you can roll/fold the raft, insert it into the bag, fold the bag over the final roll, and strap it tight. this will give a small, tight, squared away bundle (a good pillow). when water time happens, the bag (which has a convenient hole) is used to inflate. there is no need for the GIgantic inflato bag they come with for just to odd filling up. many folks carry a lashing strap anyway for tump lines and such, so around an Alpacka raft is a fine place to store it.
one in no way needs the rods they put in the stock inflate bags.
your custom bag will easily inflate to max with just a "poof" of breath, and then hold the air (mostly) with a quick twist of it's top.
granted, Sheri's bag fills the boats in 1/2 the time. yes. it works fantastic. but it's extra mass for a small gain. a smaller bag will fill a raft in let us say, twice the time, but it's twice of not-very-long, so the savings is kind'a moot.

"will it being rolled tight muck it up ? "

a surprise, it seems not to (too?)(never that sure..). if you kept it rolled weeks on end at home, month in and out, yeah, it would crease it and hurt the fabric i bet. for several months a year i keep mine rolled, using it on occasion, and only the floor shows a crease. that said, the new raft came with a crease on the floor too, and it was about a few hours old only.
no worrying, it's vastly tougher than it looks.

v.

[David Chenault]

I almost always pack the boat in my pack, if for no other reason than weight distribution. Roman has a youtube video that shows how he rolls and folds his boat, and I've found that to result in a very compact and packable shape.

But generally, the boat is waay tougher than you think at first (holding something so small and expensive). Unless your doing some pretty good bushwacking I wouldn't hesitate to pack it on the outside. (My boat stuffsack got recycled into other things almost immediately.)

[Travis Leanna]

Thanks guys. I don't really do too much bushwacking here. No point really, since all it does is get you deeper into thick brush. Any place remotely worth getting to already has a trail to it because, quite frankly, there are far fewer exciting places here than the mountains.

Unless, of course, I'm totally missing the point of bushwacking…

At any rate, it would seem like it's totally fine to lash it to the pack. That way, I can still use my smaller Talon 44 instead of bumping up to the Exos 58. It would also seem to make it easier to pack and unpack the boat because I wouldn't have to open my backpack up at all.

[Roman Dial]

The new boat design is great.

Mine came a week ago and with a bunch of hardshellers we went paddling on a local creek full of 2-10 foot ice shelves and bridges to fret over, eddies to catch, waves to surf, and seal launches to drop. It was the most equitable I'd ever felt to hardshellers.

It has the lateral stability, cargo-hold, and colors of the old "stubbies" (i.e. pre 2011) with the tracking, surfing, and rear end stability of a Witchcraft I tried last summer.

With the new design, I foresee a increased availability in second hand Alpackas, bringing that price down to the benefit of all.

Surprisingly this is also the boat design I intend to use for some sea-packrafting as it tracks so much better. As Richard notes it may not be substantially faster (~10% he calculates) but emotionally to have the bow not swing side to side is great.

I have been paddling stubbies for some time now and I was worried that the quick dancing style of paddling I'd come to enjoy might not be there anymore — but the 2011 remains a nimble craft.

There's a video that Paul Schauer made of the day, and if you watch you'll see a couple clips of the boat in action, interspersed among all the hardshells.

http://packrafting.blogspot.com/2011/04/paul-schauers-video-of-early-season-6.html

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